A context-sensitive and non-linguistic approach to abstract concepts.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
; 378(1870): 20210355, 2023 02 13.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36571133
ABSTRACT
Despite the recent upsurge in research on abstract concepts, there remain puzzles at the foundation of their empirical study. These are most evident when we consider what is required to assess a person's abstract conceptual abilities without using language as a prompt or requiring it as a response-as in classic non-verbal categorization tasks, which are standardly considered tests of conceptual understanding. After distinguishing two divergent strands in the most common conception of what it is for a concept to be abstract, we argue that neither reliably captures the kind of abstraction required to successfully categorize in non-verbal tasks. We then present a new conception of concept abstractness-termed 'trial concreteness'-that is keyed to individual categorization trials. It has advantages in capturing the context-relativity of the degree of abstraction required for the application of a concept and fittingly correlates with participant success in recent experiments. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction social engagement and inner experiences'.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Concept Formation
/
Language
Type of study:
Diagnostic_studies
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
Year:
2023
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United States