Abstract concepts, language and sociality
| Componente | Categoria |
|---|---|
| Vanessa Era | Dottorando/Assegnista/Specializzando componente il gruppo di ricerca / PhD/Assegnista/Specializzando member of the research group |
| Carlo Lai | Componenti il gruppo di ricerca / Participants in the research project |
| Sabine Pirchio | Componenti il gruppo di ricerca / Participants in the research project |
| Francesca Bellagamba | Componenti il gruppo di ricerca / Participants in the research project |
| Lina Pezzuti | Componenti il gruppo di ricerca / Participants in the research project |
| Componente | Qualifica | Struttura | Categoria |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elena Daprati | Associate Professor, Psychobiology | Roma Tor Vergata | Altro personale Sapienza o esterni / Other personnel Sapienza or other institution |
| Ferdinand Binkofski | Full Professor, | Aachen University, Germany | Altro personale Sapienza o esterni / Other personnel Sapienza or other institution |
| Laura Barca | Researcher | Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche | Altro personale Sapienza o esterni / Other personnel Sapienza or other institution |
| Arcangelo Merla | Associate Professor, University of Chieti | Università di Chieti | Altro personale Sapienza o esterni / Other personnel Sapienza or other institution |
| Alan Fogel | Full professor | University of Utah, USA | Altro personale Sapienza o esterni / Other personnel Sapienza or other institution |
| Luisa Lugli | Associate Professor, General Psychology | Università di Bologna | Altro personale Sapienza o esterni / Other personnel Sapienza or other institution |
| Annalisa Setti | Lecturer | University College Cork | Altro personale Sapienza o esterni / Other personnel Sapienza or other institution |
| Giuseppe Massaro | Psychologist, Phd in Clinical Psychology | Sapienza University of Rome | Altro personale Sapienza o esterni / Other personnel Sapienza or other institution |
| Claudia Mazzuca | PhD student in Cognitive Science | University of Bologna | Altro personale Sapienza o esterni / Other personnel Sapienza or other institution |
| Massimiliano Luciani | Psychologist, Phd | Sapienza University of Rome | Altro personale Sapienza o esterni / Other personnel Sapienza or other institution |
The capability to form and use abstract concepts, as "freedom" and "philosophy", is one of the most sophisticated human abilities. However, to date no unifying account has been able to explain abstract concepts in their varieties. Contributing to a better comprehension of how abstract concepts are represented would be crucial for all theories of meaning, including distributional ones, but especially for theories according to which concepts are embodied and grounded in perception and action systems. The project addresses the topic of abstract concepts adopting a variety of methods and techniques - from questionnaires to behavioral studies, from kinematics and EEG investigations to analysis of facial temperature and sweating. We start from the hypothesis that abstract concepts are embodied and grounded in perception-action, similarly to concrete concepts; however, for their acquisition and representation linguistic and social experiences are more crucial. The input from others is namely fundamental to put together a variety of heterogeneous and dissimilar category members. We identified two critical points highlighted in current literature: the need for a fine-grained analysis of different kinds of abstract concepts, and the emergence of multiple representation views, especially those that emphasize the importance of language and sociality for abstract concepts. To address these two aspects we identified four objectives: a. creating a database allowing us to identify clusters of abstract concepts on the basis of their specificities (e.g. social and emotional character, inner grounding); b. investigating abstract concepts acquisition, representation and decay starting from a life span perspective; c. exploring the relationship between abstract concepts and linguistic experience, investigating its "embodied counterpart", i.e. the activation of the mouth during abstract concepts processing; d. analyzing how the social dimension characterizes abstract concepts.