Words as social tools (WAT): A reprise.

The paper presents new evidence collected in the last five years supporting the Words As social Tools proposal on abstract concepts. We discuss findings revolving around three central tenets. First, we show that-like concrete concepts-also abstract concepts evoke sensorimotor experiences, even if to a lower extent, and that they are linked to inner experiences (e.

Assessing the effects of pandemic risk on cooperation and social norms using a before-after Covid-19 comparison in two long-term experiments.

How does threat from disease shape our cooperative actions and the social norms that guide such behaviour? To study these questions, we draw on a collective-risk social dilemma experiment that we ran before the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic (Wave 1, 2018) and compare this to its exact replication, sampling from the same population, that we conducted during the first wave of the pandemic (Wave 2, 2020). Tightness-looseness theory predicts and evidence generally supports that both cooperation and accompanying social norms should increase, yet, we mostly did not find this. Contributions, the probability of reaching the threshold (cooperation), and the contents of the social norm (how much people should contribute) remained similar across the waves, although the strength of these social norms were slightly greater in Wave 2.

Risk, sanctions and norm change: the formation and decay of social distancing norms.

Global challenges like the climate crisis and pandemic outbreaks require collective responses where people quickly adapt to changing circumstances. Social norms are potential solutions, but only if they themselves are flexible enough. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity to study norm formation and decay in real-world contexts.

The curious origins of ownership.

What are the origins of ownership as a conceptual domain? By combining experimental evidence from cognitive science, a theoretical proposal from developmental psychology, and the computational framework of reinforcement learning, I argue that ownership concepts can develop as a by-product of our curiosity-based exploration and become grounded via our experience of control in physical and social environments.

Abstract concepts and simulated competition.

To better understand the social determinants of conceptual knowledge we devised a task in which participants were asked to judge the match between a definition (expressed in abstract or concrete terms) and a target-word (also either abstract or concrete). The task was presented in the form of a competition that could/could not include an opponent, and in which different percentages of response rounds were assigned to the participant at the experimenter's discretion. Thus, depending on the condition, participants were either exposed to a competitive context mimicking a privileged/unprivileged interaction with the experimenter or to a socially neutral setting.

Vaccine-hesitant people misperceive the social norm of vaccination.

Vaccine hesitancy is one of the main threats to global health, as became clear once more during the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccination campaigns could benefit from appeals to social norms to promote vaccination, but without awareness of the social norm in place any intervention relying on social norms may backfire. We present a two-step approach of social norm diagnosis and intervention that identifies both whether a vaccination norm exists or develops over time and corrects misperceptions.

Kick-starting concept formation with intrinsically motivated learning: the grounding by competence acquisition hypothesis.

Although the spontaneous origins of concepts from interaction is often given for granted, how the process can start without a fully developed sensorimotor representation system has not been sufficiently explored. Here, we offer a new hypothesis for a mechanism supporting concept formation while learning to perceive and act intentionally. We specify an architecture in which multi-modal sensory patterns are mapped in the same lower-dimensional representation space.

Bodily, emotional, and public sphere at the time of COVID-19. An investigation on concrete and abstract concepts.

The outbreak of Covid-19 pandemics has dramatically affected people's lives. Among newly established practices, it has likely enriched our conceptual representations with new components. We tested this by asking Italian participants during the first lockdown to rate a set of diverse words on several crucial dimensions.

Contextual modulation of preferred social distance during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Social distancing during a pandemic might be influenced by different attitudes: people may decide to reduce the risk and protect themselves from viral contagion, or they can opt to maintain their habits and be more exposed to the infection. To better understand the underlying motivating attitudes, we asked participants to indicate in an online platform the interpersonal distance from different social targets with professional/social behaviors considered more or less exposed to the virus. We selected five different social targets: a cohabitant, a friend working in a hospital, a friend landed from an international flight, a friend who is back from a cycling ride, or a stranger.

From Affordances to Abstract Words: The Flexibility of Sensorimotor Grounding.

The sensorimotor system plays a critical role in several cognitive processes. Here, we review recent studies documenting this interplay at different levels. First, we concentrate on studies that have shown how the sensorimotor system is flexibly involved in interactions with objects.

Differences and similarities in the conceptualization of COVID-19 and other diseases in the first Italian lockdown.

Several studies have highlighted the flexible character of our conceptual system. However, less is known about the construction of meaning and the impact of novel concepts on the structuring of our conceptual space. We addressed these questions by collecting free listing data from Italian participants on a newly-and yet nowadays critical-introduced concept, i.

Evidence from a long-term experiment that collective risks change social norms and promote cooperation.

Social norms can help solve pressing societal challenges, from mitigating climate change to reducing the spread of infectious diseases. Despite their relevance, how norms shape cooperation among strangers remains insufficiently understood. Influential theories also suggest that the level of threat faced by different societies plays a key role in the strength of the norms that cultures evolve.

Words have a weight: language as a source of inner grounding and flexibility in abstract concepts.

The role played by language in our cognitive lives is a topic at the centre of contemporary debates in cognitive (neuro)science. In this paper we illustrate and compare two theories that offer embodied explanations of this role: the WAT (words as social tools) and the LENS (language is an embodied neuroenhancement and scaffold) theories. WAT and LENS differ from other current proposals, because they connect the impact of the neurologically realized language system on our cognition to the ways in which language shapes our interaction with the physical and social environment.

Touch me if you can: The intangible but grounded nature of abstract concepts.

Thinking about what the senses cannot grasp is one of the hallmarks of human cognition. We argue that "intangible abstracta" are represented differently from other products of abstraction, that goal-derived categorization supports their learning, and that they are grounded also in internalized linguistic and social interaction. We conclude by suggesting different ways in which abstractness contributes to cement group cohesion.

Words as social tools: Language, sociality and inner grounding in abstract concepts.

The paper introduces a new perspective on abstract concepts (e.g. "freedom") and their associate words representation, the Words As social Tools (WAT) view.

Abstract concepts, language and sociality: from acquisition to inner speech.

The problem of representation of abstract concepts, such as 'freedom' and 'justice', has become particularly crucial in recent years, owing to the increased success of embodied and grounded views of cognition. We will present a novel view on abstract concepts and abstract words. Since abstract concepts do not have single objects as referents, children and adults might rely more on input from others to learn them; we, therefore, suggest that linguistic and social experience play an important role for abstract concepts.

Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain.

The capacity for abstract thought is one of the hallmarks of human cognition. However, the mechanisms underlying the ability to form and use abstract concepts like 'fantasy' and 'grace' have not been elucidated yet. This theme issue brings together developmental, social and cognitive psychologists, linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, philosophers and computer scientists to present theoretical insights and novel evidence on how abstract concepts are acquired, used and represented in the brain.

Cues of control modulate the ascription of object ownership.

Knowing whether an object is owned and by whom is essential to avoid costly conflicts. We hypothesize that everyday interactions around objects are influenced by a minimal sense of object ownership grounded on respect of possession. In particular, we hypothesize that tracking object ownership can be influenced by any cue that predicts the establishment of individual physical control over objects.

The challenge of abstract concepts.

concepts ("freedom") differ from concrete ones ("cat"), as they do not have a bounded, identifiable, and clearly perceivable referent. The way in which abstract concepts are represented has recently become a topic of intense debate, especially because of the spread of the embodied approach to cognition. Within this framework concepts derive their meaning from the same perception, motor, and emotional systems that are involved in online interaction with the world.

Perceived legitimacy of normative expectations motivates compliance with social norms when nobody is watching.

Three main motivations can explain compliance with social norms: fear of peer punishment, the desire for others' esteem and the desire to meet others' expectations. Though all play a role, only the desire to meet others' expectations can sustain compliance when neither public nor private monitoring is possible. Theoretical models have shown that such desire can indeed sustain social norms, but empirical evidence is lacking.