FROMANNUAL REVIEWS

CogSci 2025

•

July 31, 2025

•

San Francisco, United States

keywords:

language and thought

corpus studies

embodied cognition

semantic memory

linguistics

Object knowledge comprises a virtually limitless feature space. When cued to generate attributes for an exemplar (dog), any feature is possible (has molecules). Yet, some features are definitively favored (tail). We hypothesize a sensorimotor bias in feature generation wherein perceptually salient features upon first pass are more cognitively accessible than abstract, verbally mediated knowledge. We examined the role of sensorimotor dominance in semantic feature generation by yoking concreteness values to cues (N=4436) and features (N=69,284) within the Buchanan et al. (2019) norms. We predict that cues regardless of their concreteness evoke relatively more concrete features (e.g., dogs evoke tails, justice evokes lawyers). The data moderately supported this hypothesis. Feature concreteness increased linearly with cue concreteness (R=.83) but the y-intercept (2.78) indicates that overall, features were more concrete than their cues. We discuss alternate factors (e.g., frequency, familiarity) that may moderate the likelihood that people retrieve tail when cued with dog.

Downloads

Paper

Next from CogSci 2025

Examining the Relationship Between Joint Attention and Word Recall in Preschool-Aged Children
poster

Examining the Relationship Between Joint Attention and Word Recall in Preschool-Aged Children

CogSci 2025

Elizabeth Perkovich and 1 other author

31 July 2025

Similar lecture

Grounded Concreteness: Human-Like Concreteness Sensitivity in Vision–Language Models
poster

Grounded Concreteness: Human-Like Concreteness Sensitivity in Vision–Language Models

ACL 2026

Christopher MacLellan and 2 other authors

07 July 2026

Stay up to date with the latest Underline news!

Select topic of interest (you can select more than one)

PRESENTATIONS

  • All Presentations
  • For Librarians
  • Resource Center
  • Free Trial
Underline Science, Inc.
1216 Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10001, USA

© 2026 Underline - All rights reserved

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.