Language and embodiment—Or the cognitive benefits of abstract representations

Kompa, Nikola

doi:10.1111/mila.12266

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 108 publications

(131 reference statements)

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“…It proposes that conversations provide a means of metacognitively examining and refining our conceptual knowledge. Rehearsing and imagining conversations with others in addition to self-directed inner speech may help us fine-tune and adjust our concepts (Clark, 2006;Kompa, 2019). In keeping with this, evidence suggests that folk-psychological narratives structure and influence the development of theory of mind (Berio, 2020).…”

Section: Words and Conversationsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Words have a weight: language as a source of inner grounding and flexibility in abstract concepts

Dove

Barca

Tummolini

et al. 2020

Psychological Research

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Section: Words and Conversationsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Words have a weight: language as a source of inner grounding and flexibility in abstract concepts

Dove

Barca

Tummolini

et al. 2020

Psychological Research

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“…Several studies failed to find modality-specific perceptual-motor activity during conceptual tasks (e.g. Bedny et al, 2008; Postle et al, 2008; Raposo et al, 2009) and the involvement of modality-specific regions in conceptual processing remains controversial (Kompa, 2021; Kompa and Mueller, 2020; Mahon, 2015; Mahon and Caramazza, 2008). Second, it is unknown which modalities robustly overlap in multimodal convergence zones.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meta-analytic evidence for a novel hierarchical model of conceptual processing

Kuhnke

Beaupain

Arola

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Conceptual knowledge plays a pivotal role in human cognition. Grounded cognition theories propose that concepts consist of perceptual-motor features represented in modality-specific perceptual-motor cortices. However, it is unclear whether conceptual processing consistently engages modality-specific areas. Here, we performed an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis across 212 neuroimaging experiments on conceptual processing related to 7 perceptual-motor modalities (action, sound, visual shape, motion, color, olfaction-gustation, and emotion). We found that conceptual processing consistently engages brain regions also activated during real perceptual-motor experience of the same modalities. In addition, we identified multimodal convergence zones that are recruited for multiple modalities. In particular, the left inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) are engaged for three modalities: action, motion, and sound. These "trimodal" regions are surrounded by "bimodal" regions engaged for two modalities. Our findings support a novel model of the conceptual system, according to which conceptual processing relies on a hierarchical neural architecture from modality-specific to multimodal areas up to an amodal hub.

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“…Interpreting a novel metaphor or a poem, for example, may require that very rich, detailed, sensory-motor or affective representations are activated in order to understand the particular aspects of meaning that are targeted. For all that, the cognitive benefits of less embodied, abstract, and sparse representations are not to be denied either (Kompa, 2019). In the end, a more balanced and nuanced view that acknowledges that (i) multiple (types of) representations may be activated and drawn upon in a task-sensitive manner in linguistic processing and that (ii) there may be a gradient ranging from more embodied to more abstract (and maybe to different types of abstract) representations which all play (different) cognitive roles, may be the most promising route.…”

Section: Discussion and Open Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But then, different types of abstract terms – and concepts or representations respectively – ought to be distinguished ( Kompa, 2019 ). While every sort of classification requires abstraction, some terms (such as “red”) require that objects be classified according to sensory, determinate features.…”

Section: Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Abstract (Non-embodied) Linguistic Representations Augment Cognitive Control

Kompa

Mueller

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Recent scholarship emphasizes the scaffolding role of language for cognition. Language, it is claimed, is a cognition-enhancing niche (Clark, 2006), a programming tool for cognition (Lupyan and Bergen, 2016), even neuroenhancement (Dove, 2019) and augments cognitive functions such as memory, categorization, cognitive control, and meta-cognitive abilities ("thinking about thinking"). Yet, the notion that language enhances or augments cognition, and in particular, cognitive control does not easily fit in with embodied approaches to language processing, or so we will argue. Accounts aiming to explain how language enhances various cognitive functions often employ a notion of abstract representation. Yet, embodied approaches to language processing have it that language processing crucially, according to some accounts even exclusively, involves embodied, modalityspecific, i.e., non-abstract representations. In coming to understand a particular phrase or sentence, a prior experience has to be simulated or reenacted. The representation thus activated is embodied (modality-specific) as sensorimotor regions of the brain are thereby recruited. In this paper, we will first discuss the notion of representation, clarify what it takes for a representation to be embodied or abstract, and distinguish between conceptual and (other) linguistic representations. We will then put forward a characterization of cognitive control and examine its representational infrastructure. The remainder of the paper will be devoted to arguing that language augments cognitive control. To that end, we will draw on two lines of research, which investigate how language augments cognitive control: (i) research on the availability of linguistic labels and (ii) research on the active usage of a linguistic code, specifically, in inner speech. Eventually, we will argue that the cognition-enhancing capacity of language can be explained once we assume that it provides us with (a) abstract, non-embodied representations and with (b) abstract, sparse linguistic representations that may serve as easy-to-manipulate placeholders for fully embodied or otherwise more detailed representations.

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Language and embodiment—Or the cognitive benefits of abstract representations

Cited by 4 publications

References 108 publications

Words have a weight: language as a source of inner grounding and flexibility in abstract concepts

Words have a weight: language as a source of inner grounding and flexibility in abstract concepts

Meta-analytic evidence for a novel hierarchical model of conceptual processing

How Abstract (Non-embodied) Linguistic Representations Augment Cognitive Control

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