Manipulating objects and telling words: A study on concrete and abstract words acquisition [PDF]
Frontiers in Psychology, 2011 Four experiments (E1-E2-E3-E4) investigated whether different acquisition modalities lead to the emergence of differences typically found between concrete and abstract words, as argued by the Words As Tools (WAT) proposal.
Anna M Borghi +5 more
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Is there a semantic system for abstract words? [PDF]
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2013 Two views on the semantics of concrete words are that their core mental representations are feature-based or are reconstructions of sensory experience. We argue that neither of these approaches is capable of representing the semantics of abstract words ...
Tim eShallice +2 more
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Abstract words processing induces parasympathetic activation: A thermal imaging study [PDF]
Frontiers in Psychology, 2022 words (e.g., freedom) compose a significant part of speech. Despite this, learning them is complicated. Abstract concepts collect more heterogeneous exemplars and are more detached from sensory modalities than concrete concepts. Recent views propose that,
Melania Paoletti +8 more
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From Affordances to Abstract Words: The Flexibility of Sensorimotor Grounding [PDF]
Brain Sciences, 2021 The sensorimotor system plays a critical role in several cognitive processes. Here, we review recent studies documenting this interplay at different levels. First, we concentrate on studies that have shown how the sensorimotor system is flexibly involved
Claudia Mazzuca +6 more
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Contextual Acquisition of Concrete and Abstract Words: Behavioural and Electrophysiological Evidence [PDF]
Brain Sciences, 2021 and concrete words differ in their cognitive and neuronal underpinnings, but the exact mechanisms underlying these distinctions are unclear. We investigated differences between these two semantic types by analysing brain responses to newly learnt words ...
Nadezhda Mkrtychian +5 more
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Acquisition of concrete and abstract words is modulated by tDCS of Wernicke’s area [PDF]
Scientific Reports, 2021 Previous behavioural and neuroimaging research suggested distinct cortical systems involved in processing abstract and concrete semantics; however, there is a dearth of causal evidence to support this.
Diana Kurmakaeva +5 more
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Embodying Language through Gestures: Residuals of Motor Memories Modulate Motor Cortex Excitability during Abstract Words Comprehension [PDF]
Sensors, 2022 There is a debate about whether abstract semantics could be represented in a motor domain as concrete language. A contextual association with a motor schema (action or gesture) seems crucial to highlighting the motor system involvement. The present study
Doriana De Marco +2 more
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Enrichment Effects of Gestures and Pictures on Abstract Words in a Second Language [PDF]
Frontiers in Psychology, 2017 Laboratory research has demonstrated that multisensory enrichment promotes verbal learning in a foreign language (L2). Enrichment can be done in various ways, e.g., by adding a picture that illustrates the L2 word’s meaning or by the learner performing a
Claudia Repetto +3 more
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The Semantic Content of Abstract Concepts: A Property Listing Study of 296 Abstract Words [PDF]
Frontiers in Psychology, 2018 The relation of abstract concepts to the modality-specific systems is discussed controversially. According to classical approaches, the semantic content of abstract concepts can only be coded by amodal or verbal-symbolic representations distinct from the
Marcel Harpaintner +2 more
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The role of vocabulary concreteness in modulating embodied semantic representations in learners of Chinese as a foreign language [PDF]
Frontiers in PsychologyEmbodied cognition theory posits that semantic representations are instantiated through two primary mechanisms: perceptual–motor simulation and conceptual metaphor. To examine how lexical concreteness influences the embodied representation in learners of
Zhiwei Cai +3 more
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