Edited by Marianna Bolognesi and Gerard J. Steen
[Human Cognitive Processing 65] 2019
► pp. 43–58
Chapter 2Abstract concepts and the activation of mouth-hand effectors
Embodied and grounded approaches to cognition have compellingly demonstrated that we comprehend concrete words simulating their meaning through our sensorimotor system (Barsalou 2008). Abstract words, i.e., words that do not have a single and concrete referent, are more difficult to account for in a grounded perspective. According to the Words As social Tools (WAT) proposal (Borghi and Binkofski 2014), in the acquisition and representation of abstract words language plays a central role. Abstract words are indeed mainly acquired through linguistic-social experience (Wauters et al. 2003). We report a behavioral experiment showing that the elaboration of abstract words involves the mouth motor system, as embodied counterpart of the activation of linguistic information, and that the involvement of the mouth is flexibly modulated by the task.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1The WAT theory on abstract words and previous evidence on mouth activation
- 2.The present study: An overview
- 2.1Participants
- 2.2Materials
- 2.3Procedure
- Lexical decision task
- Recognition task
- 3.Results
- Lexical decision
- Recognition
- 4.Discussion
- 5.Conclusion
-
Acknowledgment -
References
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.65.03maz
References
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 05 january 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.