Afterword: A Short Story on Abstract

Concepts

I am dominated by one thing, an irresistible, burning

attraction towards the abstract.
Gustave Moreau

The capability to abstract is one of the hallmarks of our humanity. In this book, we
hope to have shown that explaining the magic of how we can form and use abstract
concepts is a complicated but fascinating challenge. And it is a challenge in
particular for theories according to which our cognition is grounded and deeply
shaped by our body, by its potentialities and by its constraints.
Throughout this book, we have proposed and defended the view that words are
social tools and that conceiving words in this way is useful to account for how
concepts such as justice, freedom, and democracy are used and represented.
Words are tools because they are material and embodied and because, exactly
like physical tools, they extend and augment our cognitive capabilities. But they
are a very special and idiosincratic kind of tool. Words are ‘‘social’’ tools because
they are public, and also because they extend our capacities allowing us to benefit
from the cognitive and physical capacities of other people. Words are social tools
because they help us to be immersed in a given cultural milieu. This view on words
underlies our proposal on abstract concepts.
In the course of the book, we hope to have presented convincing arguments and
evidence favoring the WAT proposal on abstract concepts. As outlined in Chap. 2,
the WAT proposal has 5 main tenets: (a) abstract concepts are grounded and
embodied, as concrete concepts; (b) language is more crucial for abstract concepts
representation, while sensorimotor information is more important for concrete
concepts; (c) abstract concepts have a peculiar acquisition modality which ascribes
an important role to linguistic and social aspects; (d) abstract concepts activate in
the brain more linguistic networks compared to concrete concepts; and (e) abstract
concepts representation is more influenced by the differences between languages.
We have presented behavioral evidence, obtained both with children and adults, as
well as neuroscientific evidence, recorded both with patients and with controls,
that supports the WAT view. In addition, we have briefly presented crosslinguistic
evidence confirming our tenet 5.

A. M. Borghi and F. Binkofski, Words as Social Tools: An Embodied View 125

on Abstract Concepts, SpringerBriefs in Cognition,
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-9539-0,  The Author(s) 2014
126 Afterword: A Short Story on Abstract Concepts

As we have seen through the book, most of the ideas presented here do not
come out of the blue, but are often widespread in the literature. The idea that
abstract words are embodied is shared by many theories, but as we have seen, they
differ consistently in the claims they make and in the predictions they formulate.
The idea that abstract concepts are represented mainly through the linguistic
system is advanced by some theories, but the majority of them do not recognize
that abstract concepts are also embodied and grounded and tend to equate language
with associations between words, without considering it as an overall experience.
In contrast, other theories reduce the role of language, arguing that meaning is
captured only through an embodied simulation. The specificity and novelty of
WAT consists in stressing the importance of development and of the peculiar
acquisition of abstract words. But this is not the whole story. Other views have
shown that concrete and abstract words are acquired differently. Further proposals
have suggested that linguistic diversity affects more abstract than concrete
concepts representation.
But to our knowledge, WAT is the only view that includes all these aspects. It is
an embodied theory that ascribes relevance not only to sensorimotor information
but also to linguistic experience; it underlies the importance of language for
abstract concepts intending language in its complexity and in its social and
emotional aspects, not equating meaning with a network of linguistic associations;
it is a proposal on words acquisition that considers the bodily effects of a given
acquisition modality; it is a view that connects a given acquisition modality with
the way in which concepts are represented in the brain and with the way in which
words are used and their meanings are represented in different languages.
Obviously, this is not the end of the story. There are a lot of things we have not
done in this book. The WAT proposal should be refined in light of novel evidence
in different areas. We have spoken of concrete and abstract concepts and word
meanings in a general sense, but we have not distinguished between different
categories of words. For example, words expressing adverbs and prepositions
might be more abstract than concrete nouns, and verbs might be more abstract than
nouns. We have not analyzed enough the fine-grained differences between abstract
concepts. We believe further research is needed to investigate more in depth the
differences rather than the communalities between different kinds of abstract
concepts. It is indeed possible that a unitary theory is not adequate and that
different proposals might be better suited to explain subsets of abstract concepts.
The developmental trajectory we have outlined is very preliminary, and it should
be better articulated and rendered more sophisticated and compelling. Similarly,
the bodily consequences of a given acquisition modality should be further
investigated and deepened.
In sum, this is just the beginning of a short story on abstract concepts. We do
really hope that the story will become longer and that it will be enriched by fruitful
ideas and by novel evidence. The topic is so exciting and important that it is worth
a try.
Index

A I
Abstractness, 2–4, 6, 9–12, 14 Imageability, 7–10
Acquisition modality, 71, 82, 83, 89 Inner language, 32, 33
Action, 39, 40, 42, 43, 51, 53, 57,
58, 61–63
Associative learning, 91 L
Labels, 21, 24–33
Language acquisition, 75, 78
C Language learning, 72, 75–77, 89
Categorization, 3, 5, 7 Linguistic context, 112
Common and differential representation of Linguistic diversity, 116, 117, 121
abstract and concrete concepts, 7, 9–11,
95–98, 103–105
Concreteness, 7–13 M
Concreteness effect, 7–11, 95–98, 103–105 Metaphor, 39, 47–53
Contextual dependency, 7, 8 Multiple representation, 51, 53
Crosscultural studies, 111, 116

N
D Neuroimaging of abstract and concrete
Development, 71, 73, 79, 80, 83, 90 concepts, 97, 102

E P
Effects of emotional valence, 103, 104 Perceptual strength, 8, 9, 11, 12
Effects of mental imagery, 97
Embodied cognition, 19, 30, 50, 52, 71, 78, 79,
89, 90 R
Emotions, 44, 46, 47, 55–57, 64 Reversed concreteness effect, 96, 97, 104, 105
Explanations, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30–33

S
G Sign language, 111, 113, 115, 121
Grounded cognition, 39, 44, 47, 49–52, Situations, 39, 44, 45, 55, 60, 64
63, 64 Social cognition, 42, 44, 47, 60

H W
Hierarchical levels, 5 Word associations, 60–64

A. M. Borghi and F. Binkofski, Words as Social Tools: An Embodied View 127

on Abstract Concepts, SpringerBriefs in Cognition,
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-9539-0,  The Author(s) 2014