Embodied Grounding of Concreteness/Abstractness: A Sensory-Perceptual Account of Concrete and Abstract Concepts in Mandarin Chinese

Research output: Chapter in book / Conference proceedingConference article published in proceeding or bookAcademic researchpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Most previous research has investigated how embodied cognition captures concrete notions (e.g. money), but the role sensory modalities play in more abstract concepts (e.g. time) lacks empirical research—in particular, how abstractness is grounded in perceptual experiences. In this paper, a sensorimotor strength rating study (also known as modality exclusivity norms) is conducted, to ascertain the sensory-perceptual information encoded in both concrete and abstract nouns in Mandarin Chinese. The preliminary results suggest that a sensation denoting one’s internal bodily feelings—interoception—captures more abstract information than the five basic human senses, and that the abstract concepts perceived predominantly by interoception mainly comprise OBJECT EVALUATION, MENTAL, THINKING, TIME, and SPACE as their ontological domains. This study affirms the embodied grounding of the concrete and abstract concepts, and further sheds light on the grounded account of mind-body-interactions.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationChinese Lexical Semantics - 22nd Workshop, CLSW 2021, Revised Selected Papers
EditorsMinghui Dong, Yanhui Gu, Jia-Fei Hong
Place of PublicationUnknown
PublisherSpringer Cham
Pages72-83
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9783031065460
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2022

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume13250 LNAI
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Keywords

  • Concreteness/abstractness
  • Interoception
  • Modality exclusivity
  • Perceptual strength
  • Sensory modalities

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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