Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

What kinds of information do people use when thinking about abstract concepts such as justice and beauty, and do people use the same kinds of information when thinking about concrete concepts such as jacket and table? The study of conceptual processing involves understanding how conceptual knowledge is acquired, stored, and retrieved from memory. My research focuses on examining how sensory knowledge (gained through perceptual experience with the world), motor knowledge (gained through physical interaction with the world), and emotional knowledge (gained through emotional experience with the world) influences how abstract and concrete concepts are stored and retrieved from memory. My research uses language stimuli (e.g., nouns, verbs) to examine the above questions. This research is important for several reasons. First, at a theoretical level, my research attempts to understand whether conceptual knowledge is grounded in bodily experience, either through sensory, motor, and/or emotional interaction with the world. Second, it helps cognitive scientists build models that precisely describe the roles of sensory, motor, and emotional knowledge in the storage and retrieval of concepts. Third, it advances our understanding of how people conceptualize objects and events in their lives.