ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2018
Abstract concepts, language and sociality: from acquisition to inner speech.
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 34 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
34 citing papers in PubMed.
- Digital connection, real bonding: Brief online chats boost interpersonal closeness regardless of the conversational topic.Heliyon · 2025Article
- Quantifying the Multidimensionality of Abstract Concepts: An Italian Database.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Neural correlates of social and thematic semantics in autistic and non-autistic adults.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Neural correlates of social and thematic semantics in autistic and non-autistic adults.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- The experiential basis of concepts: integrating embodied and enactive accounts.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Impact of pacifier use and parenting characteristics on toddlers' vocabulary development.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Front Is High and Back Is Low: Sound-Space Iconicity in Finnish.Language and speech · 2024Article
- A novel image database for social concepts reveals preference biases in autistic spectrum in adults and children.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2024Article
- Keeping track of time: Horizontal spatial biases for hours, days, and months.Memory & cognition · 2024Article
- Abstract concepts and simulated competition.Psychological research · 2024Article
- The geo domain: a review on the conceptualization of geographical and geopolitical entities.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
- Impaired social concept processing in persons with autistic-like traits.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- The nature and neurobiology of fear and anxiety: State of the science and opportunities for accelerating discovery.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Olfactory abstraction: a communicative and metacognitive account.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Mapping the mental space of emotional concepts through kinematic measures of decision uncertainty.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Social concepts and the cerebellum: behavioural and functional connectivity signatures in cerebellar ataxic patients.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Concepts, abstractness and inner speech.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Consensus Paper: Current Perspectives on Abstract Concepts and Future Research Directions.Journal of cognition · 2023Article
- Abstract concepts: external influences, internal constraints, and methodological issues.Psychological research · 2022Review
- Is justice grounded? How expertise shapes conceptual representation of institutional concepts.Psychological research · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The problem of representation of abstract concepts, such as 'freedom' and 'justice', has become particularly crucial in recent years, owing to the increased success of embodied and grounded views of cognition. We will present a novel view on abstract concepts and abstract words. Since abstract concepts do not have single objects as referents, children and adults might rely more on input from others to learn them; we, therefore, suggest that linguistic and social experience play an important role for abstract concepts. We will discuss evidence obtained in our and other laboratories showing that processing of abstract concepts evokes linguistic interaction and social experiences, leading to the activation of the mouth motor system. We will discuss the possible mechanisms that underlie this activation. Mouth motor system activation can be due to re-enactment of the experience of conceptual acquisition, which occurred through the mediation of language. Alternatively, it could be due to the re-explanation of the word meaning, possibly through inner speech. Finally, it can be due to a metacognitive process revealing low confidence in the meaning of our concepts. This process induces in us the need to rely on others to ask/negotiate conceptual meaning. We conclude that with abstract concepts language works as a social tool: it extends our thinking abilities and pushes us to rely on others to integrate our knowledge.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use, and representation in the brain'.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.