By the mainstream view in psychology and neuroscience, concepts are informational units, rather stable, and are represented in propositional format. In the view I will outline, instead, concepts correspond to patterns of activation of the perception, action and emotional systems which are typically activated when we interact with the entities they refer to. Starting from this embodied and grounded approach to concepts, I will focus on different research lines and present some experimental evidence concerning concepts of objects, concepts of actions, and abstract concepts. I will argue that, in order to account for abstract concepts, embodied and grounded theories should be extended.
Publication type:
Contributo in volume
Publisher:
Cambridge scholars press, Newcastle, GBR
Source:
Epistemology of ordinary knowledge, edited by M. Bianca, P. Piccari, pp. 181–194. Newcastle: Cambridge scholars press, 2015
Date:
2015
Resource Identifier:
http://www.cnr.it/prodotto/i/343368
urn:isbn:978-1-4438-8052-7
Language:
Eng