Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T01:24:56.889Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Abstraction still holds its feet on the ground

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2020

Mariella Pazzaglia
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Rome “La Sapienza,” 00185Rome, [email protected]@uniroma1.it http://dippsy.psi.uniroma1.it/users/pazzaglia-mariella IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, 00100Rome, Italy.
Erik Leemhuis
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Rome “La Sapienza,” 00185Rome, [email protected]@uniroma1.it http://dippsy.psi.uniroma1.it/users/pazzaglia-mariella IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, 00100Rome, Italy.

Abstract

In view of current scientific knowledge, it seems premature to hypothesize a qualitative distinction between processes, networks, and structures involved in abstract processes from those based on perception, episodic, or procedural memories. Predictive thought and mental travel strongly rely, at different levels of consciousness, on past and ongoing sensory input, bodily information (e.g., interoception), and the results of perceptual elaboration.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aglioti, S. M. & Pazzaglia, M. (2010) Representing actions through their sound. Experimental Brain Research 206(2):141–51. doi: 10.1007/s00221-010-2344-x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Aglioti, S. M. & Pazzaglia, M. (2011) Sounds and scents in (social) action. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15(2):4755. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2010.12.003.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Borghi, A. M., Barca, L., Binkofski, F., Castelfranchi, C., Pezzulo, G. & Tummolini, L. (2019b) Words as social tools: Flexibility, situatedness, language and sociality in abstract concepts: Reply to comments on “Words as social tools: Language, sociality and inner grounding in abstract concepts.” Physics of Life Reviews 29:178–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Y. C. & Spence, C. (2010) When hearing the bark helps to identify the dog: Semantically-congruent sounds modulate the identification of masked pictures. Cognition 114(3):389404. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.10.012.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Connell, L., Lynott, D. & Banks, B. (2018) Interoception: The forgotten modality in perceptual grounding of abstract and concrete concepts. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 373(1752):20170143. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0143.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ghazanfar, A. A. & Lemus, L. (2010) Multisensory integration: Vision boosts information through suppression in auditory cortex. Current Biology 20(1):R2223. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.11.046.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huth, A. G., De Heer, W. A., Griffiths, T. L., Theunissen, F. E. & Gallant, J. L. (2016) Natural speech reveals the semantic maps that tile human cerebral cortex. Nature 532(7600):453–58. doi: 10.1038/nature17637.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seo, H. S., Arshamian, A., Schemmer, K., Scheer, I., Sander, T., Ritter, G. & Hummel, T. (2010) Cross-modal integration between odors and abstract symbols. Neuroscience Letters 478(3):175–78. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2010.05.011.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Troche, J., Crutch, S. J. & Reilly, J. (2017) Defining a conceptual topography of word concreteness: Clustering properties of emotion, sensation, and magnitude among 750 English words. Frontiers in Psychology 8(1787). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01787.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walla, P. (2008) Olfaction and its dynamic influence on word and face processing: Cross-modal integration. Progress in Neurobiology 84(2):192209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zhou, G. Y., Lane, G., Cooper, S. L., Kahnt, T. & Zelano, C. (2019) Characterizing functional pathways of the human olfactory system. Elife 8. doi: ARTN e47177. 10.7554/eLife.47177.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed