Concepts are widely recognized as flexible and shaped by multiple factors. Here, we investigate how conceptual representations differ across age groups by focusing on four timely domains—ecological, geo, natural (which we labeled altogether green), and technological. Replicating a previous study, we collected ratings from 320 Italian older adults (aged >64) on 50 concepts per domain across 39 semantic dimensions targeting different conceptual aspects (e.g., sensorimotor, sociopolitical, inner, emotional). We then compared these ratings with those from younger adults (aged 18–35) collected in the earlier study. Results revealed strong semantic proximity among green concepts and a clear separation between them (especially natural) and the technological ones. The internal semantic composition of each domain revealed clear age group differences. Within the green domains, older adults exhibited richer, more multifaceted, and more concrete conceptual representations than younger adults, with fine-grained divergences across green concepts. In contrast, no age group differences emerged in the complexity of technological concept representations; however, younger adults characterized this domain more concretely. These differences were closely linked to self-reported domain experience and familiarity: older adults reported greater personal experience with ecological topics, whereas younger adults reported higher familiarity with technology. Theoretically, our findings suggest that conceptual complexity and concreteness vary across domains and are shaped by age group membership and all that it entails. Scientifically, the resulting O-TECo database provides the first semantic norms tailored to older adults. Societally, results highlight the need for age-sensitive interventions to foster engagement with environmental policies and responsible technology use.

Recent theories of embodied cognition suggest that conceptual knowledge is grounded not only in external sensory experiences but also in internal bodily states. Interoception, the sensing of physiological signals from within the body, has been identified as a key modality for representing abstract concepts. However, whether this grounding is dynamically modulated by significant physiological transitions remains unexplored. The present study investigates how the profound bodily changes occurring during pregnancy influence the semantic characterization of abstract and concrete concepts. Eighty-one (40 pregnant, 41 age-matched non-pregnant controls) women performed a rating task on 40 words (20 abstract, 20 concrete) across several dimensions: abstractness, concreteness, emotionality, valence, exteroception, interoception, and Body-Object Interaction (BOI). Participants also completed clinical and interoceptive sensibility self-reported questionnaires (MAIA, GAD-7, TAS-20, BDI-II). Results confirmed that abstract concepts are characterized by higher interoceptive strength and emotionality, while concrete concepts are more strongly associated with exteroception and BOI, in line with current literature. Crucially, however, pregnancy significantly modulated these representations: pregnant women rated abstract concepts as more interoceptive, emotional and more concrete compared to the control group. Furthermore, pregnant women attributed higher BOI scores to concrete concepts, suggesting an increased sensitivity to potential physical interactions between their changing body and the environment. Hence, our results reveal that, with concrete words, pregnant women pay more attention to their bodily experience of external objects; with abstract words, they tend to pay more attention to their inner and affective bodily signals. These findings provide novel evidence for the embodied and dynamic nature of conceptual knowledge, showing that conceptual representations are flexibly modulated in response to the individual's current physiological and interoceptive state.

Many people use inner speech (IS), the internal language, for self-guidance, planning, and simulating conversations. Research suggests it serves as a cognitive tool, primarily in executive functions, but its role may extend to other cognitive domains. This study investigates whether IS contributes to action learning and, therefore, execution. We examined whether observing novel, sequential, and non-meaningful actions would engage IS to support their encoding. To test this, participants observed actions to be learned while continuously repeating a syllable (articulatory suppression, AS) during the encoding phase, to prevent them from using IS and maintain verbal information. A control group performed a finger-tapping task at the same frequency as the AS to control for the cognitive demand of a dual task. Participants in the AS condition demonstrated lower accuracy and poorer execution quality in subsequent action recall and reproduction--execution phase--with a significantly higher number of non-learners-individuals unable to reproduce the actions. Furthermore, participants' self-reported IS use was significantly lower during the encoding (AS present) than during the execution phase (AS absent), confirming the disruptive effect of AS. These findings suggest that IS plays a crucial role in action learning by facilitating the encoding and retrieval of novel movements. Beyond its well-established role in executive functions, IS appears to contribute to broader cognitive processes, including motor learning. By highlighting its impact on action acquisition, this study expands our understanding of IS as a versatile cognitive tool, providing new insights into its function in learning and execution across domains.

Studies have shown that learning abstract concepts (e.g., freedom compared to table) may be particularly challenging. To address concept learning, most studies use paradigms involving a single participant, such as lexical decision, match to sample, induction, and rating tasks. Here, we use an interactive task involving three family members—mother, father, and a 5-year-old child—and examine how concepts differing in abstractness are explained by the parents, either individually or together, and how the child learns and employs them. We investigate multimodal dynamics in interaction, studying gestures, movements of bodily parts, and movement coordination among interactors, in an effort to capture different embodied signatures characterizing concepts differing in abstractness. Results reveal that people gesture differently with abstract and concrete concepts, but in both cases tend to instantiate the conceptual referent, either metaphorically or iconically. Subtle differences in head movements and social touch suggest that people struggle more to understand the meanings of abstract concepts than concrete ones. Finally, with abstract concepts, coordination episodes are longer. Overall, the results provide support for the view that, with abstract concepts, people use more communicative signals and tend to converge more than with concrete concepts.

The role of interoception, the sensing of internal bodily signals, in shaping our understanding of concepts remains an intriguing and understudied area of research. Here, we investigate the interoceptive foundation of conceptual representation, particularly for abstract concepts compared to concrete ones. Using a novel mouse-tracking paradigm, participants categorized various types of abstract and concrete concepts (i.e., abstract emotional, abstract philosophical, concrete natural and concrete artifact) as interoceptive (i.e., experienced through internal bodily sensations) or exteroceptive (i.e., experienced through the five perceptual senses). Results on the reaction times show that abstract-emotional concepts were more readily classified as interoceptive than abstract-philosophical concepts, emphasizing the importance of the interoceptive dimension for this category. Movement trajectories showed the implicit activation of interoceptive features also during the categorization of concrete natural concepts. To account for individual differences in interoceptive accuracy (i.e., the ability to accurately perceive visceral signals), participants performed a cardiac interoceptive task (i.e., the heartbeat counting task). Higher interoceptive accuracy was associated with faster categorization speeds, particularly for concrete-natural concepts. Taken together, our findings emphasize the multifaceted nature of conceptual knowledge where the interoceptive dimension plays a key role.

Even if concepts are the basic building blocks of private thoughts, not only do most of our mental representations are acquired from others, but we also routinely rely on experts in many knowledge domains. Evidence suggests that in many of these situations people believe they know what in fact is known by someone else instead. In this contribution, we explore how trust and delegation of semantic expertise influence the way in which concepts are represented and ask whether it is possible to actually ground one’s understanding via the understanding of others. We conclude by deriving some implications for the debate over understanding in contemporary AI systems.

Questo studio indaga il processo di trasmissione ed acquisizione di conoscenze relative a concetti astratti e concreti (ad esempio, fantasia vs. barca) attraverso un paradigma interattivo. Tredici famiglie, ciascuna con un figlio o una figlia, hanno partecipato a un compito di definizione concettuale basato sul paradigma clinico Lausanne Trilogue Play. I genitori, prima individualmente e poi insieme, hanno spiegato ai propri figli concetti astratti e concreti. Sono stati analizzati i gesti prodotti allo scopo di verificare l'ipotesi che gesti diversi possano accompagnare la trasmissione di concetti astratti e concreti. I risultati indicano che i gesti variano in funzione del tipo di concetto e del ruolo familiare (madre, padre, figlio/a), e che il tipo di concetto modula la struttura delle co-occorrenze gestuali; l'effetto differenziale tra concetti astratti e concreti sulla produzione gestuale, inizialmente marcato, tende tuttavia ad attenuarsi nel corso dell'interazione. I risultati sono rilevanti per le teorie che sottolineano l’importanza della relazione tra l’astrattezza e l’interazione sociale.

This study investigated vocal congruence, i.e., the alignment between self-voice perception and the sense of identity, across cisgender and transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) participants (N = 44) in three conditions: Silent Reading, Reading Aloud, and Listening to recorded speech. Results revealed that TGNC participants reported significantly lower vocal congruence than cisgender participants across all experimental conditions, with the starkest difference in conditions where auditory feedback was present. This experience of incongruence appears to be modulated by interoceptive sensibility and alexithymia, with TGNC individuals reporting lower interoceptive trust and higher levels of alexithymia. Emotional awareness was positively linked to inner-voice congruence in the TGNC group. Additionally, aspects related to gender-minority stress predicted lower congruence. These findings highlight the complex interplay between gender identity, interoception, emotion regulation strategies, and voice perception.

Researchers often examine the role of overt language and inner speech in cognition by using articulatory suppression as a form of verbal interference. The hypothesis behind is that it causally prevents participants from using verbal strategies during the execution of a primary task. Articulatory suppression involves uttering either meaningful or meaningless syllables or words––aloud, silently, whispered. Although widely used to disrupt linguistic processing, the heterogeneity of procedures raises questions about the specificity of its effects, and its underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Studies vary in verbal stimuli, articulation modalities, rhythms, and modes of stimulus presentation. However, there are few empirical investigations about the impact of these methodological differences on the interference effects. Articulatory suppression also has different purposes: it is employed as the main experimental manipulation or as a control task. When it is the primary manipulation, once the suppression methods have been identified, attention should shift toward determining the most appropriate dual-task control condition. Conversely, when articulatory suppression is used as a control task, methodological details are often insufficiently reported, limiting replicability. This mini-review examines articles from the last decade that use articulatory suppression to disrupt phonological access during the execution of a primary task. We provide an overview of protocols employing articulatory suppression, emphasizing the heterogeneity of methodological choices and discussing the implications of this heterogeneity within embodied cognition. We stress the need for evidence on the neurocognitive implications of different articulatory suppression modalities. This would improve awareness when choosing modalities, consequently enhancing coherence across studies and replicability.

People generally assume that others share their understanding of word meaning, despite substantial interpersonal variability in conceptual representations. The present EEG study investigates whether this is reflected in neural activity by examining the N400 component, classically associated with semantic integration processes. We also tested whether interpersonal variability differs across concept type by contrasting abstract concepts (e.g., philosophy), typically characterized by greater semantic variability, concrete concepts (e.g., candle), and ecological concepts (e.g., urbanization), recently proposed as having a hybrid nature between the two. Nineteen Italian young adults first completed a free-listing task, generating semantic associations (targets) for abstract, concrete, and ecological prime words. In a subsequent EEG session, participants performed a feature verification task in which prime words were paired with either self- or other-generated semantically related targets. ERP responses elicited by the prime words were also analyzed to investigate the electrophysiological Concreteness Effect through the N400-like and N700 components. Results revealed greater centro-parietal negativity for other- relative to self-generated targets in the N400 time window, suggesting increased semantic integration costs for externally generated meanings. This effect was not modulated by prime type. Prime analyses revealed a Concreteness Effect only in the N400-like window, with concrete and ecological concepts eliciting stronger and topographically distinct frontal negativities than abstract concepts, without differing from each other. Overall, the findings suggest that the N400 component is sensitive not only to semantic incongruence but also to subjective differences in conceptual ownership, extending its role to interpersonal variability in meaning.

The peripersonal space is a multisensory interface between the body and the environment, which can be modulated by the presence of objects or other agents. However, how the presence of artificial agents affects the representation of peripersonal space is still poorly understood. We conducted four experiments in which participants had to judge objects' reachability for themselves or for another agent. In Experiment 1, participants performed the reachability task alone. In Experiment 2, participants interacted with another human partner. Experiment 2b was a control condition to test task's physical properties. In Experiment 3, participants performed the task with the humanoid robot iCub, programmed to exhibit motor and social behaviours. The results showed that the extent of the peripersonal space was influenced by the presence of another agent, as participants narrowed their own peripersonal space in a social context, compared to performing the task alone. Furthermore, they perceived their own peripersonal space as larger, compared to the peripersonal space of another human agent (Experiment 2) or humanoid robot (Experiment 3). This suggests that the motor repertoire of a human and a humanoid embodied artificial agent is similarly perceived. The present evidence may open new avenues for space perception in social interactions.

Conversation topics may vary in abstractness. This might impact the effort required by speakers to reach a common ground and, ultimately, an interactive alignment. In fact, people typically feel less confident with abstract concepts and single-words rating studies suggest abstract concepts are more associated with social interactions than concrete concepts—hence suggesting increasing levels of abstractness enhance inner and mutual monitoring processes. However, experimental studies addressing conversational dynamics afforded by abstract concepts are still sparse. In three preregistered experiments we ask whether abstract sentences are associated with specific constructs in dialogue, i.e., higher uncertainty, more curiosity and willingness to continue a conversation, and more questions related to causal and agency aspects. We do so by asking participants to evaluate the plausibility of linguistic exchanges referring to concrete and abstract concepts. Results support theories proposing that abstract concepts involve more inner monitoring and social dynamics compared to concrete concepts and suggest that reaching alignment in dialogue is more effortful with abstract than with concrete concepts.

Several studies suggest that numerical cognition interacts with spatial cognition. Here, we explored spatial-numerical associations through the lens of manual gestures. We asked English and Italian participants to generate 'random' sequences of numbers while simultaneously moving the hands outwards, away from the torso, or inwards, towards the mid center of the body. These manual gestures were modeled after gestures that are common in naturally occurring numerical discourse, such as when people talk about "huge numbers" or "tiny numbers." Results showed that in both participant groups, outwards movements coincided with relatively larger numbers compared to inwards movements, for which generated numbers were smaller. This effect was small in magnitude. We also explored individual differences and found that self-reported numeracy as well as levels of gesture production and perception modulated the effect of our gesture manipulation very little, if at all.

Concepts, typically classified into more abstract (e.g., “chair”) and more concrete (e.g., “friendship”), are the mental shortcuts that people commonly use to organize knowledge and navigate their inner and external world. Research on categorization highlights social interaction as crucial for the acquisition and use of abstract concepts. Behavioral evidence shows that people typically learn abstract concepts primarily through language; even after acquisition, they feel less confident about their meaning and tend to rely more on others to refine or negotiate them. Neuroscientific studies support this evidence by showing a greater activation of social and linguistic brain areas for concepts higher in abstractness. However, existing literature relies on constrained experimental methods, testing participants mainly in isolation (“single-brain” approach) or, when using more interactive (conversational) paradigms, they have two main limitations: (I) using non-naturalistic settings; (II) extracting only behavioral indices. Within the emerging “second-person neuroscience” panorama, we contend that hyperscanning—a technique consisting of the simultaneous recording of brain activity from multiple individuals—may be ideally suited to adding evidence on the link between abstract concepts and social interactions by capturing Inter-Brain Synchronization (IBS) of individuals during real-time social exchanges. The availability of portable devices further broadens hyperscanning potential, allowing for the study of brain-to-brain coupling in more ecological environments. Drawing on prior hyperscanning evidence from learning to free conversations, we contend that using hyperscanning in naturalistic settings, with the due care, may offer a novel and interesting lens to investigate the role of social interactions for abstractness, thus enriching categorization research.

This study explores how the quality of brief dyadic written exchanges (lasting under 5 min) on a virtual platform and the nature of the conversational topic (abstract or concrete), influences physical, interpersonal, and psychological closeness between interlocutors. In the first experiment, participants engaged in written conversations on either an abstract or concrete topic under two conditions: (i) an interactive condition, where participants exchanged messages with another person, and (ii) a non-interactive condition, where participants wrote independently on the same topic, aware that another person was simultaneously doing the same. Results indicated that participants in the interactive condition reported feeling significantly closer to their interlocutor than those in the non-interactive condition. In addition, greater perceived pleasantness, intimacy, and the importance of the other person's contribution to the conversation were associated with increased feelings of closeness. However, inconclusive evidence was obtained regarding the interaction of the other person's contribution with the abstractness of the conversational topic during the written exchanges in fostering feelings of closeness. The second experiment focused only on the interactive condition, where we examined interpersonal dynamics across different subcategories of abstract (e.g., philosophical/spiritual, emotional, social, physical/spatiotemporal) and concrete topics (e.g., tools, animals, food). The results of the first experiment were replicated, reinforcing the idea that the quality of the virtual exchange-rather than the topic itself-plays a crucial role in fostering feelings of closeness between individuals.

To face ecological disasters, one of the major emergencies of modern times, fostering pro-environmental behaviors appears crucial. While research explored various behavioral drivers, few studies addressed the conceptual representation of ecological events at different ages. Our preregistered study fills this gap, examining how different generations conceptualize ecology, considering evidence suggesting a link between climate change abstractness and willingness to act pro-environmentally. Older (> 65 yo) and younger (18–35 yo) individuals performed multiple tasks targeting conceptual processing (categorization), semantic organization (rating), and conceptual representation (feature generation) of ecological (e.g., deforestation) compared to concrete (e.g., spoon) and abstract (e.g., affirmation) concepts. In the categorization task, participants responded to critical ecological, concrete, and abstract words but refrained from responding to animal words. The rating task involved evaluating critical words on semantic aspects (e.g., Abstractness, Familiarity), and the feature generation task listing properties true for each concept. Innovatively, participants were tested in three possible settings (indoor, natural outdoor, urbanized outdoor) to test whether exposure to nature impacts categorization. Results showed that independent from the setting, ecological concepts were similar to abstract concepts, especially in semantic organization and conceptual representation, or more abstractly characterized than them, especially in conceptual processing. Age differences were minimal, but older adults, who showed more positive attitudes toward ecology and nature, characterized ecological concepts more concretely than younger adults. Theoretically, the multifarious characterization of ecological phenomena supports the flexibility of our conceptual system and points to the necessity of overcoming the classical concrete-abstract dichotomy and studying concepts in a more “situated” manner. From a societal point of view, the age-dependent abstractness of ecological concepts might inform policies on how to improve climate change campaigns, tailoring them to different age groups.