Concepts are the building blocks of our knowledge that link our past, present, and future. They can be distinguished into concrete (CCs) and abstract concepts (ACs). Recent research investigated differences among kinds of ACs (e.g., emotional, numerical, philosophical ACs); for each of them, specific dimensions (e.g., emotions, language) can assume relevance.
Since ACs are more complex than CCs, they might generate higher uncertainty. Hence, metacognitive monitoring might be crucial: with ACs, we would inspect our knowledge longer, being aware of its limitations. This monitoring process might turn either to a continuous search for word meaning or to the (implicit or explicit) request of information to others. In both cases, inner speech might play an important role.
The project consists of two parts. The first focuses on acquiring and using ACs and CCs and their kinds during social interaction, in line with the fresher developments in the field. We will analyze online and real conversations between children from age 5 and parents and between pairs of adults.
The second assesses whether ACs and their kinds, more than CCs, induce forms of interaction with the self, in particular inner speech. We are interested in how metacognitive monitoring is mediated by inner speech during the use of ACs. We will use ratings and mouth tracking experiments to study uncertainty with ACs, articulatory suppression, EMG, and questionnaires to investigate inner speech. We will also address whether the lower confidence in our knowledge leads to higher cooperation with others because their input is particularly needed. Finally, we will focus on inner speech related to mind wandering and ACs. We will address whether and when ACs and CCs evoke more or less vivid involuntary memories.
We will adopt novel, interactive methods investigating concepts and words during their use and various paradigms and techniques (mouse tracking, kinematics, EMG, sophisticated textual analysis techniques).
The project is highly innovative for a variety of reasons.
Novelty1: ACs in interaction
While current literature on concepts typically uses classical tasks (e.g., lexical decision) with single words or simple sentences, the present project will investigate ACs and CCs in dialogue during their real-time use. We will test the hypothesis that, because of the complexity of ACs, we would need more the contribution of others. We will use sophisticated methods, from kinematics to novel techniques of linguistic data analysis to investigate interaction and coordination between participants in movements and linguistic production.
Novelty 2: ACs and inner speech
We will investigate the relationship between ACs processing and two kinds of inner speech, linked to WM retrieval and spontaneous and related to mind wandering. To the best of our knowledge, the involvement of IS during ACs use has not yet been explored. Importantly, these differences will be addressed through various methods, spanning from questionnaires, behavioral and mouse tracking experiments, and physiological methods.
Novelty 3: Inner speech as a novel way to access metacognition
Our results will have implications for the unexplored relationship between metacognition and IS. They will be informative as to whether metacognitive monitoring might occur through IS and through a specific kind of IS.
Novelty 4. Study of metacognition with ACs
Across the two WPs, we will investigate the role played by metacognition in the processing of ACs. We will test the level of confidence children and adults have in their knowledge of word meanings, starting from the hypothesis that higher uncertainty characterizes knowledge of ACs. Notably, we will examine monitoring processes both through overt metacognitive ratings and implicitly via mouse tracking. Adopting a lifespan perspective, we intend to explore whether the level of confidence in the knowledge of CCs and ACs grows with age.
Novelty 5. Implications for literature on IS.
In addition to clarifying the role of IS in ACs processing, our approach will help to disentangle among the main interpretations of IS and their different role in different tasks: the abstraction view, according to which IS does not involve articulation; the motor simulation view, according to which IS is planned as overt speech but is not executed, being accompanied by a blocking mechanism; and the hybrid view, according to which motor involvement of the tongue/lips during IS depends on the task.
Novelty 4: A lifespan perspective
Two different and separate streams have classically characterized literature on concepts, one focusing on conceptual development and the other on conceptual representation in the adult brain. Our project integrates the two perspectives, offering many insights into how categorization unfolds in time.
Novelty 5: Clinical implications
Our project has various clinical implications that can represent important elements of novelty.
Triangular communication. The first experiment can contribute to promoting healthy family relationships. It relies on studies on the triangular competence interactions with father and mother in normative and clinical and clinical contexts of the Lausanne Trilogue Play, implemented so far with infants, children and adolescents (Fivaz-Depeursinge & Corboz-Warnery 1999; Mazzoni et al 2018; Criscuolo, Laghi, Mazzoni, Castiglioni, Vicari, Zanna, 2020). The early development of triangular communication between children and parents, like the one investigated in our study, might form the building block for the child's emotional and social development. The implications for clinical and therapeutic work are numerous, particularly regarding the importance of implicit, affective communication in family relationships. The most direct ones concern the necessity to integrate fathers¿or other co-caretakers¿in child mental health clinical work. Adopting the perspective of triangular or whole family relationships allows discerning the resources and problems in the formation of the family alliance, including the child as an active participant in it. It is only after assessing the interactions of the family unit too that the therapist will know at which system level to target the intervention: whole family, or coparental, marital, parent¿infant or individual subsystems.
Autistic spectrum condition. Our project can have implications for the study of Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) individuals. Evidence has shown that ASC individuals make less use of inner speech (Williams et al 2016). At the same time, even if the results are not univocal, some results suggest that they might have difficulties with abstractness, particularly in processing mental states and cognitive ACs (Hobson, 1989; Dove, 2019; Leslie, 1992). Better elucidating the relationship between inner speech and ACs might contribute to preparing a battery to use with ASC individuals.