Study title

This project investigates how humans mentally represent words referring to concrete and abstract entities and events. In particular, we scrutinise a view under which mental representations derive from direct experience with corresponding objects and actions in the world, with abstract words further accounted for via metaphorical links to the world (eg, we understand language related to communication due to metaphorical links between communication and object exchange). Importantly, however, our direct experiences are not limited to perception and action but also encompass affective associations which seem to be particularly prevalent for abstract words. Here we assess whether perceptual and affective systems are differentially involved in understanding concrete and abstract language cross-linguistically. In experiments that combine methodologies from psycholinguistics and psychophysics, we investigate English and British Sign Language (BSL, the language used by the British Deaf community). The role of perceptual-motor and affective experience on BSL processing is especially informative, because BSL sign forms can physically reflect many perceptual-motor properties, and because facial expressions fulfil both linguistic and affective functions. Results have implications for the learning of abstract concepts which are essential for scholastic achievement and social interaction.