Prof. Markus Kiefer | Grounded cognition: Foundations of conceptual representations in the sensory and motor systems

Gastvortrag

  • Datum: 04.07.2019
  • Uhrzeit: 11:00 - 12:00
  • Vortragende(r): Prof. Markus Kiefer
  • University of Ulm, Germany
  • Ort: MPI für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften
  • Raum: Wilhelm Wundt Raum (A400)
Classical models assume that conceptual knowledge is represented in an amodal format distinct from the sensory and motor systems. More recent models, however, propose that concepts are embodied in the sense that interactions with objects form their conceptual memory traces in distributed sensory or action-related modality-specific systems. In neurophysiological experiments, we show that conceptual tasks activate brain areas involved in the processing of visual, acoustic and action-related conceptual information, even under unconscious viewing conditions rendering imagery unlikely. Furthermore, we demonstrate that access to concepts involves a partial reinstatement of brain activity during the perception of objects. Action priming studies in healthy volunteers as well as investigations of brain-damaged patients suggest a functional role of the sensory motor systems in conceptual processing. We observed an involvement of the sensory and motor systems not only in object concepts (e.g., table), but also in abstract concepts (e.g. justice). Both training studies with novel objects, in which new concepts had to be acquired under different sensory-motor interactions, and studies with real objects in experts or deaf individuals revealed experience-dependent brain activity. A conceptual task activated a given sensory and motor area only when participants had rich opportunities to interact with the object through the corresponding sensory and motor channel during concept acquisition. The specificity of activity in sensory and motor areas during conceptual processing, its early onset and anatomical overlap with perceptual processing, its functional role as well as its experience-dependent plasticity strongly suggest that conceptual features are represented in a modality-specific fashion. These findings support the view that both concrete and abstract concepts are grounded in perception and action as a function of the sensory-motor experience during concept acquisition.

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