Recent theories propose that abstract concepts, compared to concrete ones, might activate to a larger extent interoceptive, social and linguistic experiences. At the same time, recent research has underlined the importance of investigating how different sub-kinds of abstract concepts are represented. We report a pre-registered experiment, preceded by a pilot study, in which we asked participants to evaluate the difficulty of 3 kinds of concrete concepts (natural objects, tools, and food concepts) and abstract concepts (Philosophical and Spiritual concepts, PS, Physical Space Time and Quantity concepts, PSTQ, and Emotional, Mental State and Social concepts, EMSS). While rating the words, participants were assigned to different conditions designed to interfere with conceptual processing: they were required to squeeze a ball (hand motor system activation), to chew gum (mouth motor system activation), to self-estimate their heartbeats (interoception), and to perform a motor articulatory task (inner speech involvement). In a control condition they simply rated the difficulty of words. A possible interference should result in the increase of the difficulty ratings. Bayesian analyses reveal that, compared to concrete ones, abstract concepts are more grounded in interoceptive experience and concrete concepts less in linguistic experience (mouth motor system involvement), and that the experience on which different kinds of abstract and concrete concepts differs widely. For example, within abstract concepts interoception plays a major role for EMSS and PS concepts, while the ball squeezing condition interferes more for PSTQ concepts, confirming that PSTQ are the most concrete among abstract concepts, and tap into sensorimotor manual experience. Implications of the results for current theories of conceptual representation are discussed.

中文翻译：

---

具体和抽象概念中的感觉运动和内感受维度

最近的理论提出，与具体概念相比，抽象概念可能会在更大程度上激活内感受、社会和语言体验。与此同时，最近的研究强调了研究不同子类抽象概念如何表示的重要性。我们报告了一个预先注册的实验，先进行了试点研究，在该实验中，我们要求参与者评估 3 种具体概念（自然物体、工具和食物概念）和抽象概念（哲学和精神概念、PS、物理空间时间和数量概念，PSTQ，以及情感、精神状态和社会概念，EMSS）。在对单词进行评分时，参与者被分配到旨在干扰概念处理的不同条件：他们被要求挤球（手部运动系统激活）、嚼口香糖（嘴部运动系统激活）、自我估计他们的心跳（内感受）和执行运动发音任务（内部言语参与）。在控制条件下，他们只是对单词的难度进行评分。可能的干扰应该会导致难度等级的增加。贝叶斯分析表明，与具体概念相比，抽象概念更多地基于内感受经验，而具体概念则更少基于语言经验（嘴部运动系统参与），并且不同种类的抽象概念和具体概念的经验差异很大。例如，在抽象概念中，内感受对 EMSS 和 PS 概念起主要作用，而挤球条件对 PSTQ 概念的干扰更大，确认 PSTQ 是抽象概念中最具体的，并利用感觉运动手动体验。讨论了结果对当前概念表示理论的影响。