Dataset Information

A test of the symbol interdependency hypothesis with both concrete and abstract stimuli.

ABSTRACT: In Experiment 1, the symbol interdependency hypothesis was tested with both concrete and abstract stimuli. Symbolic (i.e., semantic neighbourhood distance) and embodied (i.e., iconicity) factors were manipulated in two tasks-one that tapped symbolic relations (i.e., semantic relatedness judgment) and another that tapped embodied relations (i.e., iconicity judgment). Results supported the symbol interdependency hypothesis in that the symbolic factor was recruited for the semantic relatedness task and the embodied factor was recruited for the iconicity task. Across tasks, and especially in the iconicity task, abstract stimuli resulted in shorter RTs. This finding was in contrast to the concreteness effect where concrete words result in shorter RTs. Experiment 2 followed up on this finding by replicating the iconicity task from Experiment 1 in an ERP paradigm. Behavioural results continued to show a reverse concreteness effect with shorter RTs for abstract stimuli. However, ERP results paralleled the N400 and anterior N700 concreteness effects found in the literature, with more negative amplitudes for concrete stimuli.

SUBMITTER: Malhi SK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5873929 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A test of the symbol interdependency hypothesis with both concrete and abstract stimuli.

Malhi Simritpal Kaur SK Buchanan Lori L

PloS one 20180328 3

In Experiment 1, the symbol interdependency hypothesis was tested with both concrete and abstract stimuli. Symbolic (i.e., semantic neighbourhood distance) and embodied (i.e., iconicity) factors were manipulated in two tasks-one that tapped symbolic relations (i.e., semantic relatedness judgment) and another that tapped embodied relations (i.e., iconicity judgment). Results supported the symbol interdependency hypothesis in that the symbolic factor was recruited for the semantic relatedness task ...[more]

PMID: 29590121

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Project description:In several behavioral psycholinguistic studies, it has been shown that concrete words are processed more efficiently. They can be remembered faster, recognized better, and can be learned easier than abstract words. This fact is called concreteness effect. There are fMRI studies which compared the neural representations of concrete and abstract concepts in terms of activated regions. In the present study, a comparison has been made between the condition-specific connectivity of functional networks (obtained by group ICA) during imagery of abstract and concrete words. The obtained results revealed that the functional network connectivity between three pairs of networks during concrete imagery is significantly different from that of abstract imagery (FDR correction at the significance level of 0.05). These results suggest that abstract and concrete concepts have different representations in terms of functional network connectivity pattern. Remarkably, in all of these network pairs, the connectivity during concrete imagery is significantly higher than that of abstract imagery. These more coherent networks include both linguistic and visual regions with a higher engagement of the right hemisphere, so the results are in line with dual coding theory. Additionally, these three pairs of networks include the contrasting regions which have shown stronger activation either in concrete or abstract word processing in former studies. The findings imply that the brain is more integrated and synchronized at the time of concrete imagery and it may explain the reason of faster concrete words processing. In order to validate the results, we used functional network connectivity distributions (FNCD). Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to check if the abstract and concrete FNCDs extracted from whole subjects are the same. The result revealed that the corresponding distributions are different which indicates two different patterns of connectivity for abstract and concrete word processing. Also, the mean of FNCD is significantly higher at the time of concrete imagery than that of abstract imagery. Furthermore, FNCDs at the single-subject level are significantly more left-skewed or equally, include more strong connectivity for concrete imagery.

Dataset Information

A test of the symbol interdependency hypothesis with both concrete and abstract stimuli.

Publications

A test of the symbol interdependency hypothesis with both concrete and abstract stimuli.

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