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The grounding of abstract concepts in vision and action

抽象概念以愿景和行动为基础

基本信息

批准号：
278940365
负责人：
Professor Dr. Markus Kiefer
金额：
--
依托单位：
Institut für Deutsche und Niederländische Philologie
依托单位国家：
德国
项目类别：
Research Grants
财政年份：
2015
资助国家：
德国
起止时间：
2014-12-31 至 2021-12-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/278940365?language=en
关键词：
grounding abstract concepts vision action

项目摘要

Concepts held in semantic long-term memory are important building blocks of human cognition because they establish the meaning of language and thought. Traditionally, concepts are specified as amodal mental entities different from the perceptual or motor systems. More recent modality-specific approaches propose that concepts are essentially grounded in perception and action. For concrete concepts such as hammer, a modality-specific grounding of concepts has been demonstrated. However, for abstract concepts like truth the assumption of an amodal symbolic representation holds a largely unquestioned dogma-like status. Previous evidence regarding an involvement of the sensory-motor systems in the processing of abstract concepts is inconsistent thereby questioning the generality of grounded cognition theories. These inconsistencies could reflect an unknown varying contribution of sensory or motor modalities to the conceptual representation of abstract words. In this project, we therefore develop a new empirical approach by first specifying the content of abstract concepts. We then test whether visual or action-related abstract concepts are processed in the corresponding modality-specific system. In the first series of experiments, we investigate the grounding of abstract concepts in the sensory and motor systems of the human brain by measuring brain activity with event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during abstract word recognition. The high temporal resolution of ERPs complements the high spatial resolution of fMRI and allows us to distinguish whether sensory-motor activity in response to abstract words reflects early access to conceptual features or later imagery. Measurements of brain activity with ERPs or fMRI might reveal activity in the sensory-motor system, which only plays an epiphenomenal role. The second series of experiments therefore tests with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and behavioral interference experiments the functional role of visual and motor representations for the processing of abstract concepts. Grounded cognition theories predict that conceptual representations are established by the learning-based formation of cortical cell assemblies in sensory-motor areas during the course of concept acquisition. Experience-dependent plasticity of abstract physical concepts will be assessed in the third series of experiments with fMRI. We investigate the neural correlates and the content of abstract physical concepts in expert physicists and beginners (2nd year physics students). With these complementary lines of experiments, we expect to gain novel insights into the role of sensory and motor representations for abstract concepts. Moreover, we will be able to determine how modality-specific representations contribute to excellence in experts. Our research thus will yield new results that will influence fields beyond psychology and cognitive neuroscience such as education and teaching.

语义长期记忆中的概念是人类认知的重要组成部分，因为它们建立了语言和思想的含义。传统上，概念被指定为不同于感知或运动系统的非模态心理实体。最近的特定模式方法提出概念本质上基于感知和行动。对于诸如锤子之类的具体概念，已经证明了特定于模态的概念基础。然而，对于像真理这样的抽象概念，非模态符号表示的假设在很大程度上具有无可置疑的教条般的地位。先前关于感觉运动系统参与抽象概念处理的证据不一致，从而质疑扎根认知理论的普遍性。这些不一致可能反映出感觉或运动方式对抽象词的概念表征的未知的不同贡献。因此，在这个项目中，我们通过首先指定抽象概念的内容来开发一种新的实证方法。然后，我们测试视觉或与动作相关的抽象概念是否在相应的特定模态系统中进行处理。在第一个系列的实验中，我们通过在抽象单词识别过程中使用事件相关电位（ERP）和功能磁共振成像（fMRI）测量大脑活动来研究抽象概念在人脑感觉和运动系统中的基础。 ERP 的高时间分辨率补充了功能磁共振成像的高空间分辨率，使我们能够区分对抽象单词的反应的感觉运动活动是否反映了对概念特征的早期访问或后来的意象。用 ERP 或功能磁共振成像测量大脑活动可能会揭示感觉运动系统的活动，而感觉运动系统只起到附带作用。因此，第二系列实验通过经颅磁刺激（TMS）和行为干扰实验测试了视觉和运动表征在处理抽象概念中的功能作用。扎根认知理论预测，概念表征是在概念获取过程中通过感觉运动区域皮层细胞组件的基于学习的形成而建立的。抽象物理概念的依赖于经验的可塑性将在第三系列功能磁共振成像实验中进行评估。我们研究了专家物理学家和初学者（二年级物理学生）的神经关联和抽象物理概念的内容。通过这些互补的实验，我们期望对抽象概念的感觉和运动表征的作用获得新的见解。此外，我们将能够确定特定模态的表示如何有助于专家的卓越表现。因此，我们的研究将产生新的成果，影响心理学和认知神经科学以外的领域，例如教育和教学。