Tommaso Lamarra, Caterina Villani, Marianna M Bolognesi
{"title":"Specificity effect in concrete/abstract semantic categorization task.","authors":"Tommaso Lamarra, Caterina Villani, Marianna M Bolognesi","doi":"10.1007/s10339-025-01286-5","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Concrete concepts (banana) are processed faster and more accurately than abstract ones (belief). This phenomenon, supported by empirical studies, is known as the concreteness effect. However, recent research indicates that controlling certain psycholinguistic variables can mitigate or reverse this effect. We introduce a previously neglected variable, namely categorical specificity, and investigate its role in lexical and semantic access, through: ratings, a lexical decision task and a semantic decision task. Our findings confirm the processing advantage of concrete over abstract concepts (concreteness effect) and reveal a similar advantage for specific over general concepts (specificity effect). We also report a non-significant interaction between the two variables. We discuss the results within the general framework of conceptual abstraction.</p>","PeriodicalId":47638,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Processing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cognitive Processing","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-025-01286-5","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Concrete concepts (banana) are processed faster and more accurately than abstract ones (belief). This phenomenon, supported by empirical studies, is known as the concreteness effect. However, recent research indicates that controlling certain psycholinguistic variables can mitigate or reverse this effect. We introduce a previously neglected variable, namely categorical specificity, and investigate its role in lexical and semantic access, through: ratings, a lexical decision task and a semantic decision task. Our findings confirm the processing advantage of concrete over abstract concepts (concreteness effect) and reveal a similar advantage for specific over general concepts (specificity effect). We also report a non-significant interaction between the two variables. We discuss the results within the general framework of conceptual abstraction.
期刊介绍:
Cognitive Processing - International Quarterly of Cognitive Science is a peer-reviewed international journal that publishes innovative contributions in the multidisciplinary field of cognitive science. Its main purpose is to stimulate research and scientific interaction through communication between specialists in different fields on topics of common interest and to promote an interdisciplinary understanding of the diverse topics in contemporary cognitive science. Cognitive Processing is articulated in the following sections:Cognitive DevelopmentCognitive Models of Risk and Decision MakingCognitive NeuroscienceCognitive PsychologyComputational Cognitive SciencesPhilosophy of MindNeuroimaging and Electrophysiological MethodsPsycholinguistics and Computational linguisticsQuantitative Psychology and Formal Theories in Cognitive ScienceSocial Cognition and Cognitive Science of Culture