ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2018
The multifaceted abstract brain.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 51 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
51 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Emotional and Social Dimension of Abstract Concepts Meet with Interoception in Right Anterior Insula.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Emotional and Social Dimension of Abstract Concepts Meet with Interoception in Right Anterior Insula.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Emotional and Social Dimension of Abstract Concepts Meet with Interoception in Right Anterior Insula.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Indirect experiential grounding: semantic similarity of abstract scientific concepts is reflected in activity patterns in visual and motor cortex.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging of taxonomic and thematic processing of abstract and concrete word pairs.Journal of neuropsychology · 2025Article
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging of taxonomic and thematic processing of abstract and concrete word pairs.Journal of neuropsychology · 2025Article
- Mapping Contributions of the Anterior Temporal Semantic Hub to the Processing of Abstract and Concrete Verbs.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Mapping Contributions of the Anterior Temporal Semantic Hub to the Processing of Abstract and Concrete Verbs.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Mapping Contributions of the Anterior Temporal Semantic Hub to the Processing of Abstract and Concrete Verbs.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Mapping Contributions of the Anterior Temporal Semantic Hub to the Processing of Abstract and Concrete Verbs.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Quantifying the Multidimensionality of Abstract Concepts: An Italian Database.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- The Flexible Role of Social Experience in the Processing of Abstract Concepts.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Spatio-temporal activity of brain electrical sources during processing of abstract social concepts.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Spatio-temporal activity of brain electrical sources during processing of abstract social concepts.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Spatio-temporal activity of brain electrical sources during processing of abstract social concepts.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Invariant representations in abstract concept grounding - the physical world in grounded cognition.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2024Review
- Are organics more nutritious than conventional foods? A comprehensive systematic review.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Abstract concepts and simulated competition.Psychological research · 2024Article
- The Italian Sensorimotor Norms: Perception and action strength measures for 959 words.Behavior research methods · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
concepts play a central role in human behaviour and constitute a critical component of the human conceptual system. Here, we investigate the neural basis of four types of abstract concepts, examining their similarities and differences through neuroimaging meta-analyses. We examine numerical and emotional concepts, and two higher-order abstract processes, morality judgements and theory of mind. Three main findings emerge. First, representation of abstract concepts is more widespread than is often assumed. Second, representations of different types of abstract concepts differ in important respects. Each of the domains examined here was associated with some unique areas. Third, some areas were commonly activated across domains and included inferior parietal, posterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex. We interpret these regions in terms of their role in episodic recall, event representation and social-emotional processing. We suggest that different types of abstract concepts can be represented and grounded through differing contributions from event-based, interoceptive, introspective and sensory-motor representations. The results underscore the richness and diversity of abstract concepts, argue against single-mechanism accounts for representation of all types of abstract concepts and suggest mechanisms for their direct and indirect grounding.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.