Does the mind care about whether a word is abstract or concrete? Why concreteness is probably not a natural kind

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Abstract

Many psychologists currently assume that there is a psychologically real distinction to be made between concepts that are abstract and concepts that are concrete. It is for example largely agreed that concepts and words are more easily processed if they are concrete. Moreover, it is assumed that this is because these words and concepts are concrete. It is thought that interesting generalizations can be made about certain concepts because they are concrete. I argue that we have surprisingly little reason to believe that the abstract-concrete distinction is psychologically real.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)627-646
JournalMind and Language
Volume39
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This publication was funded by the DFG‐Graduiertenkolleg “Situated Cognition” (GRK‐2185/1) and Ruhr University Research School PLUS, funded by Germany's Excellence Initiative (DFG GSC 98/3). This work is also part of the research programme Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies, which is funded through the gravitation programme of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO grant number 024.004.031).

FundersFunder number
DFG‐GraduiertenkollegGRK‐2185/1
Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science
Germany's Excellence Initiative
Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftGSC 98/3
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek024.004.031
Research School, Ruhr University Bochum

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