Ricerc@Sapienza

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).