Division of Clinical and Cognitive Neurosciences, Department of Neurology, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University Aachen, Germany.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Apr 9;7:125. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00125. eCollection 2013.
The cognitive and neural representation of abstract words is still an open question for theories of embodied cognition. Generally, it is proposed that abstract words are grounded in the activation of sensorimotor or at least experiential properties, exactly as concrete words. Further behavioral theories propose multiple representations evoked by abstract and concrete words. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study to investigate the neural correlates of concrete and abstract multi-word expressions in an action context. Participants were required to read simple sentences which combined each concrete noun with an adequate concrete verb and an adequate abstract verb, as well as an adequate abstract noun with either kind of verbs previously used. Thus, our experimental design included a continuum from pure concreteness to mere abstractness. As expected, comprehension of both concrete and abstract language content activated the core areas of the sensorimotor neural network namely the left lateral (precentral gyrus) and medial (supplementary motor area) premotor cortex. While the purely concrete multi-word expressions elicited activations within the left inferior frontal gyrus (pars triangularis) and two foci within the left inferior parietal cortex, the purely abstract multi-word expressions were represented in the anterior part of left middle temporal gyrus that is part of the language processing system. Although the sensorimotor neural network is engaged in both concrete and abstract language contents, the present findings show that concrete multi-word processing relies more on the sensorimotor system, and abstract multi-word processing relies more on the linguistic system.
抽象词的认知和神经表现仍然是具身认知理论的一个悬而未决的问题。一般来说，人们认为抽象词是基于感觉运动或至少是经验属性的激活，就像具体词一样。进一步的行为理论提出了由抽象词和具体词引起的多种表示。我们进行了一项功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究，以调查动作语境中具体和抽象多词表达的神经相关性。参与者被要求阅读简单的句子，这些句子将每个具体名词与适当的具体动词和适当的抽象动词结合起来，以及适当的抽象名词与之前使用的任何一种动词结合起来。因此，我们的实验设计包括从纯粹的具体性到纯粹的抽象性的连续体。正如预期的那样，理解具体和抽象的语言内容都会激活感觉运动神经网络的核心区域，即左侧（中央前回）和内侧（辅助运动区）运动前皮质。虽然纯粹的具体多词表达会在左侧额下回（三角部）内引起激活，并且在左侧顶下小叶内有两个焦点，但纯粹的抽象多词表达则存在于左侧颞中回的前部，该区域是语言处理系统的一部分。尽管感觉运动神经网络参与了具体和抽象的语言内容，但目前的研究结果表明，具体的多词处理更多地依赖于感觉运动系统，而抽象的多词处理更多地依赖于语言系统。
