ArticlePsychological research2022
Words have a weight: language as a source of inner grounding and flexibility in abstract concepts.
Article in Psychological research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed.
- Abstract words are hard to acquire; Does social relevance help?Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2025Article
- Contrasting the organization of concrete and abstract word meanings.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2025Article
- Fine-Grained Concreteness Effects on Word Processing and Representation Across Three Tasks: An ERP Study.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Mapping Contributions of the Anterior Temporal Semantic Hub to the Processing of Abstract and Concrete Verbs.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Semantic Anchors Facilitate Task Encoding in Continual Learning.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2025Article
- Abstractness and social interaction through a new lens: the potentialities of hyperscanning in naturalistic settings.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Impact of pacifier use and parenting characteristics on toddlers' vocabulary development.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- A novel image database for social concepts reveals preference biases in autistic spectrum in adults and children.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2024Article
- Abstract concepts and simulated competition.Psychological research · 2024Article
- Motor strength as a feature of concepts and visual representations.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Rethinking the role of language in embodied cognition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Editorial concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences.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
- Multi-dimensional sensorimotor grounding of concrete and abstract categories.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Mechanisms of alignment: shared control, social cognition and metacognition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- A context-sensitive and non-linguistic approach to abstract concepts.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Consensus Paper: Current Perspectives on Abstract Concepts and Future Research Directions.Journal of cognition · 2023Article
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- Distributed embodiment of metaphoricalFrontiers in psychology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The role played by language in our cognitive lives is a topic at the centre of contemporary debates in cognitive (neuro)science. In this paper we illustrate and compare two theories that offer embodied explanations of this role: the WAT (words as social tools) and the LENS (language is an embodied neuroenhancement and scaffold) theories. WAT and LENS differ from other current proposals, because they connect the impact of the neurologically realized language system on our cognition to the ways in which language shapes our interaction with the physical and social environment. Examining these theories together, their tenets and supporting evidence, sharpens our understanding of each, but also contributes to a better understanding of the contribution that language might make to the acquisition, representation and use of abstract concepts. Here we focus on how language provides a source of inner grounding, especially metacognition and inner speech, and supports the flexibility of our thought. Overall, the paper outlines a promising research program focused on the importance of language to abstract concepts within the context of a flexible, multimodal, and multilevel conception of embodied cognition.
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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.