The Semantic Richness of Abstract Concepts
We contrasted the predictive power of three measures of semantic richness—number of features (NF), contextual dispersion (CD), and a novel measure of number of semantic neighbors (NSN)—for a large set of concrete and abstract concepts on lexical decision and naming tasks. NSN (but not NF) facilitate...
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2012-11-01
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Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00315/full |
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doaj-899fd7d455c04b8691f315a38aa531152020-11-25T02:52:27ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Human Neuroscience1662-51612012-11-01610.3389/fnhum.2012.0031536329The Semantic Richness of Abstract ConceptsGabriel eRecchia0Michael eJones1Indiana UniversityIndiana UniversityWe contrasted the predictive power of three measures of semantic richness—number of features (NF), contextual dispersion (CD), and a novel measure of number of semantic neighbors (NSN)—for a large set of concrete and abstract concepts on lexical decision and naming tasks. NSN (but not NF) facilitated processing for abstract concepts, while NF (but not NSN) facilitated processing for the most concrete concepts, consistent with claims that linguistic information is more relevant for abstract concepts in early processing. Additionally, converging evidence from two datasets suggests that when NSN and CD are controlled for, the features that most facilitate processing are those associated with a concept’s physical characteristics and real-world contexts. These results suggest that rich linguistic contexts (many semantic neighbors) facilitate early activation of abstract concepts, whereas concrete concepts benefit more from rich physical contexts (many associated objects and locations).http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00315/fullAbstract Conceptsconcretenesslexical decisionSemantic Richnessfeature normscontextual diversity |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Gabriel eRecchia Michael eJones |
spellingShingle |
Gabriel eRecchia Michael eJones The Semantic Richness of Abstract Concepts Frontiers in Human Neuroscience Abstract Concepts concreteness lexical decision Semantic Richness feature norms contextual diversity |
author_facet |
Gabriel eRecchia Michael eJones |
author_sort |
Gabriel eRecchia |
title |
The Semantic Richness of Abstract Concepts |
title_short |
The Semantic Richness of Abstract Concepts |
title_full |
The Semantic Richness of Abstract Concepts |
title_fullStr |
The Semantic Richness of Abstract Concepts |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Semantic Richness of Abstract Concepts |
title_sort |
semantic richness of abstract concepts |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
series |
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience |
issn |
1662-5161 |
publishDate |
2012-11-01 |
description |
We contrasted the predictive power of three measures of semantic richness—number of features (NF), contextual dispersion (CD), and a novel measure of number of semantic neighbors (NSN)—for a large set of concrete and abstract concepts on lexical decision and naming tasks. NSN (but not NF) facilitated processing for abstract concepts, while NF (but not NSN) facilitated processing for the most concrete concepts, consistent with claims that linguistic information is more relevant for abstract concepts in early processing. Additionally, converging evidence from two datasets suggests that when NSN and CD are controlled for, the features that most facilitate processing are those associated with a concept’s physical characteristics and real-world contexts. These results suggest that rich linguistic contexts (many semantic neighbors) facilitate early activation of abstract concepts, whereas concrete concepts benefit more from rich physical contexts (many associated objects and locations). |
topic |
Abstract Concepts concreteness lexical decision Semantic Richness feature norms contextual diversity |
url |
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00315/full |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT gabrielerecchia thesemanticrichnessofabstractconcepts AT michaelejones thesemanticrichnessofabstractconcepts AT gabrielerecchia semanticrichnessofabstractconcepts AT michaelejones semanticrichnessofabstractconcepts |
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