Vigliocco Gabriella, Kousta Stavroula-Thaleia, Della Rosa Pasquale Anthony, Vinson David P, Tettamanti Marco, Devlin Joseph T, Cappa Stefano F
Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences Research Department, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London WC1H OAP, UK.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Cell Press, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
Cereb Cortex. 2014 Jul;24(7):1767-77. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bht025. Epub 2013 Feb 13.
It is generally assumed that abstract concepts are linguistically coded, in line with imaging evidence of greater engagement of the left perisylvian language network for abstract than concrete words (Binder JR, Desai RH, Graves WW, Conant LL. 2009. Where is the semantic system? A critical review and meta-analysis of 120 functional neuroimaging studies. Cerebral Cortex. 19:2767-2796; Wang J, Conder JA, Blitzer DN, Shinkareva SV. 2010. Neural representation of abstract and concrete concepts: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. Hum Brain Map. 31:1459-1468). Recent behavioral work, which used tighter matching of items than previous studies, however, suggests that abstract concepts also entail affective processing to a greater extent than concrete concepts (Kousta S-T, Vigliocco G, Vinson DP, Andrews M, Del Campo E. The representation of abstract words: Why emotion matters. J Exp Psychol Gen. 140:14-34). Here we report a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment that shows greater engagement of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, an area associated with emotion processing (e.g., Etkin A, Egner T, Peraza DM, Kandel ER, Hirsch J. 2006. Resolving emotional conflict: A role for the rostral anterior cingulate cortex in modulating activity in the amygdala. Neuron. 52:871), in abstract processing. For abstract words, activation in this area was modulated by the hedonic valence (degree of positive or negative affective association) of our items. A correlation analysis of more than 1,400 English words further showed that abstract words, in general, receive higher ratings for affective associations (both valence and arousal) than concrete words, supporting the view that engagement of emotional processing is generally required for processing abstract words. We argue that these results support embodiment views of semantic representation, according to which, whereas concrete concepts are grounded in our sensory-motor experience, affective experience is crucial in the grounding of abstract concepts.
一般认为，抽象概念是通过语言编码的，这与成像证据相符，即左颞周语言网络对抽象词的参与度高于具体词（Binder JR，Desai RH，Graves WW，Conant LL. 2009.语义系统在哪里？对120项功能性神经成像研究的批判性综述和荟萃分析。《大脑皮层》。19:2767 - 2796；Wang J，Conder JA，Blitzer DN，Shinkareva SV. 2010.抽象概念和具体概念的神经表征：神经成像研究的荟萃分析。《人类大脑图谱》。31:1459 - 1468）。然而，最近的行为学研究使用了比以往研究更紧密的项目匹配，结果表明，抽象概念在情感加工方面也比具体概念更为显著（Kousta S - T，Vigliocco G，Vinson DP，Andrews M，Del Campo E.抽象词的表征：为什么情感很重要。《实验心理学杂志：总论》。140:14 - 34）。在此，我们报告一项功能性磁共振成像实验，该实验表明，与情感加工相关的前额叶前扣带回皮层（例如，Etkin A，Egner T，Peraza DM，Kandel ER，Hirsch J. 2006.解决情感冲突：前额叶前扣带回皮层在调节杏仁核活动中的作用。《神经元》。52:871）在抽象加工中参与度更高。对于抽象词，该区域的激活受到我们项目的享乐效价（积极或消极情感关联程度）的调节。对1400多个英语单词的相关分析进一步表明，一般来说，抽象词在情感关联（效价和唤醒）方面的评分高于具体词，这支持了这样一种观点，即处理抽象词通常需要情感加工的参与。我们认为，这些结果支持语义表征的具身观，根据这一观点，具体概念基于我们的感觉运动经验，而情感经验在抽象概念的基础形成中至关重要。
