{"pk":21324,"title":"The Fundamental Flexibility of Abstract Words","subtitle":null,"abstract":"In this Symposium we link different perspectives and traditions of research on language and concepts in the cognitive sciences to better understand the process of abstraction from the social-interactive standpoint. In contrast to the usual benefits of abstraction – such as the ability to categorize and generalize – we underscore the possibility of abstract concepts and words to remain underspecified, “open to the context, the suggestions of others” (Borghi, 2023) or to processes of real-time negotiations (Christiansen & Chater, 2022). This is enabled by their largely non-perceptual rela-tional character (Gentner, 2005) and by the fact that they arise in cognitive systems continually embedded and active in their environments (Cisek 1999; Mannella & Tummolini 2023).","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Psychology; Concepts and categories; Interactive behavior; Language and thought; Language understanding"}],"section":"Symposia","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1vk753xf","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Joanna","middle_name":"","last_name":"Rączaszek-Leonardi","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Warsaw","department":""},{"first_name":"Anna","middle_name":"","last_name":"Borghi","name_suffix":"","institution":"Sapienza University of Rome","department":""},{"first_name":"Nick","middle_name":"","last_name":"Chater","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Warwick","department":""},{"first_name":"Morten","middle_name":"H.","last_name":"Christiansen","name_suffix":"","institution":"Aarhus University","department":""},{"first_name":"Chiara","middle_name":"","last_name":"Fini","name_suffix":"","institution":"Sapienza University of Rome","department":""},{"first_name":"Dedre","middle_name":"","last_name":"Gentner","name_suffix":"","institution":"Northwestern University","department":""},{"first_name":"Angelo Mattia","middle_name":"","last_name":"Gervasi","name_suffix":"","institution":"Sapienza University of Rome","department":""},{"first_name":"Daniel","middle_name":"C","last_name":"King","name_suffix":"","institution":"Northwestern University","department":""},{"first_name":"Francesco","middle_name":"","last_name":"Mannella","name_suffix":"","institution":"National Research Council","department":""},{"first_name":"Claudia","middle_name":"","last_name":"Mazzuca","name_suffix":"","institution":"Sapienza University of Rome","department":""},{"first_name":"Luca","middle_name":"","last_name":"Tummolini","name_suffix":"","institution":"National Research Council of Italy","department":""},{"first_name":"Julian","middle_name":"","last_name":"Zubek","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Warsaw","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2024-01-02T02:00:00+08:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/21324/galley/10923/download/"},{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/21324/galley/15688/download/"},{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/21324/galley/21769/download/"}]}