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Several studies find that spatial cognition interacts with numerical cognition in a number of different ways. For example, people from Western cultures think about numbers in terms of a left-to-right going number line (Dehaene et al., 1993; Wood et al., 2008), or in terms of vertical height (Loetscher et al., 2010; Hartmann et al., 2012, 2014; Winter & Matlock, 2013), or in terms of size (Henik & Tzelgov, 1982; Hurewitz et al., 2006). Numbers also interact with space via manual actions, where smaller numerical magnitudes are associated with precision grips as opposed to power grips (Andres et al., 2004; Lindemann et al., 2007; Moretto & Di Pellegrino, 2008; Badets & Pesenti, 2010; Ranzini et al., 2011). One of the tasks through which people probe mental number space is random number generation: studies show that participants generate larger random numbers when moving their heads to the right or upwards (Loetscher et al., 2010; Winter & Matlock, 2013). Recent observational studies demonstrate that people frequently use gestures when talking about numerical quantities (Winter, Perlman & Matlock, 2013; Woodin et al., 2020; Alcaraz-Carrión et al., 2022). These studies show that spatial gestures are prominent in numerical discourse. This demonstrates that speakers frequently spatialize numerical quantity via their hands. Gesture thus provides a window into numerical thought, but given that these studies are correlational, we do not know whether gestures are able to influence numerical representations in a functionally relevant way. Some early results show that gestures can influence singular versus plural representations (Nicol & Patson, 2022), but we do not know yet whether producing a gesture can influence numerical magnitude representations. In this task, we explore whether performing manual gestures modeled after naturally occurring numerical gestures can modulate random number generation behavior. This also has the advantage of studying random number generation behavior in a more ecologically valid task. Previous studies on spatial biases in this task have used very artificial movements, such as left versus right head movements, that are not actually associated with numerical information in naturally occurring discourse (Woodin et al., 2020). In this study, we use gestures that are actually occurring ‘in the wild’ to study spatial biases in random number generation. In the present study, participants sit in a quiet and lit room in front of a video camera. They are asked to call out random numbers between 1-30 at the beat of 0.5. Hz (30bpm) played by an electronic metronome (following the procedure of Loetscher et al., 2008; Winter & Matlock, 2013), while performing two-handed gestures with inward movements (hands moving toward each other) and outward movements (hands moving away from each other) on the horizontal axis of their torso. The experiment consists of two phases. In the training phase, we will first instruct participants to rehearse the rhythmic hand movement to the beat, producing 10 inward and outward movements, then we introduce the random number generation component, asking participants to produce 10 numbers “as random as possible”, and then participants perform 10 practice trials on both tasks. Instructions (pre-registered in repository) will highlight that randomness means that each number has an equal probability and that each number is independent of the preceding one. We ask participants not to call out the number while performing the movement but when the hands are stationary in the positions of the horizontal axis. To avoid bias, the experimenter will never mention numbers or spatial language to describe numbers (“small number”, “large number”). Following previous studies (Loetscher et al., 2008, Winter & Matcok, 2013), we will ask participants to close their eyes while performing the task. In the main experimental phase, participants will ask to generate 80 numbers while performing the hand movements on the beat. All participants will start with the inwards position and move outwards. We will use the gesture direction as a means of investigating size-based spatial numerical associations, for which greater random quantities may be more likely to be generated during outward-moving gestures and lesser random quantities during inward-moving gestures. Further, we will investigate whether such association is modulated by mathematical expertise, assessed by collecting numeracy data for every participant through the Subjective Numeracy Scale (SNS) (Fagerlin et al., 2007), and by comparing the performance of participants with different mathematical backgrounds, i.e., math and non-math students. The study will involve Italians and English speakers. This allows us to increase the generalizability of our results and to explore whether spatial biases in random number generation might be modulated by the frequency of spontaneous gesturing across participants, measured via Italian vs. English group differences (for previous evidence, see Cattani et al., 2019) and also via the ‘Brief Assessment of Gesture’ (BAG) scale (Nagels et al., 2015).

concepts come into a great variety ranging from numbers to emotions, from social entities to mental states, and refer to heterogeneous experiences (e.g., Ghio et al., 2013, Dreyer & Pulvermuller 2018, Desai et al., 2018, Villani et al., 2019). According to Multiple Representation Views, and in particular according to the Words As social Tools (WAT) theory (Borghi et al. 2018, 2019), linguistic and social experiences are crucial for abstract concepts acquisition and representation: abstract concepts are typically acquired through language (Wauters, et al., 2003) and thanks to the support of others (i.e., social metacognition, Borghi et al., 2019). Given their highly complexity, abstract concepts are also more variable than concrete concepts within and between individuals. Recent literature has indeed underlined the necessity to study abstract concepts and words in real-context situations rather than through isolated settings (Barsalou et al., 2018). The present work focuses on institutional concepts, like norms and duty. It is conceived as an ideal follow up of a recent study on institutional concepts (Villani et al. under review), in which we collected rating on sub-categories of abstract concepts (i.e., institutional and theoretical) and concrete concepts (i.e., food and tools) provided by people with different expertise. The study showed the peculiarity of institutional concepts, and shed light on the fine-grained differences between “meta-institutional” concepts (e.g., justice) characterized as socially constructed terms, and “pure-institutional” concepts (e.g., parliament) perceived as more similar to technical tools. Importantly, it also suggested that institutional concept representation varies as a function of individual life experience (e.g., expertise in the law field). This study intends to test the WAT proposal investigating whether the exposure to linguistic and social situations influence the processing of specific sub-categories of abstract concepts (i.e., institutional and theoretical) and concrete concepts (i.e., food and tools), and whether individual differences emerge. To this aim, we decided to use a priming task with a go-nogo paradigm. The study will be performed online. Participants experts and non-experts in the law field (Law-groups vs. Control-group, respectively) will be presented with a list of target-words preceded by a picture-prime, that are social-action (e.g., dance together), linguistic-social (e.g., chatting with a friend), linguistic-textual (e.g., reading a book) and control (a landscape), and were required to press a button only if the words do not denote a planet or atmospheric and astronomical phenomena. The characteristics and criteria selection of prime and target stimuli are detailed below. Materials Selection and Analysis Prime stimuli. A total of 60 pictures were selected from Google Images. Of these, 10 depicted two people performing a joint action, such as dancing or carrying a sofa (social-action prime); 10 represented two people talking (linguistic-social prime), 10 showed a person reading a book (linguistic-textual prime), 10 were landscape (control), 10 depicted a person interacting with a tool and 10 a person interacting with a food (included as filler). The selected pictures were balanced for brightness, size, gender, and age of characters. In order to create a set of prime stimuli more representative for each prime condition, we asked 73 participants, who will not participate at the pre-registered study, to rate each picture using a 7-point Likert scale for three different scales: social scale (“how much the image evokes a situation of social interaction”); linguistic scale (“how much the image evokes a situation of linguistic interaction”) and physical scale (“how much the image evokes a situation of physical interaction”). For each scale, a multidimensional scaling analysis was conducted to evaluate the distances between the pictures across all scales. For each prime, two pictures that minimize the distance (highly similarity) on the critical scale and maximizing the distance (highly dissimilarity) in the other scales were selected, according to the following criteria: - Social-action prime: highly similarity in social scale and highly dissimilarity in physical and linguistic scales. - Linguistic-social prime: highly similarity in linguistic scale and highly dissimilarity in physical scale, but with a minimum distance in social scale. - Linguistic-textual prime: highly similarity in linguistic scale and highly dissimilarity in physical and social scale. - Control: two pictures that obtained low scores in social, linguistic, and physical scale. Target stimuli. Target stimuli consist of 80 words: Half of them will be nogo-trials and the other half go-trials. The nogo-trials include 40 words that denote planets, atmospheric and astronomical phenomena (e.g., Jupiter, snow, eclipse). The go-trials were composed by four sub-groups of abstract and concrete concepts. Abstract concepts include 10 institutional (e.g., marriage, contract) and 10 theoretical concepts (e.g., energy, multiplication) already used in the previous norming study (Villani et al., under review). Concrete concepts include 10 food (e.g., bread, carrot) and 10 tool concepts (e.g., lamp, knife) selected from Barca et al., (2002) database. The selected go-trials were balanced across the main psycholinguistic variables that are word length, number of syllables, absolute frequency and level of concreteness. Specifically, a one-way ANOVA showed that the four-categories did not differ in word length (F(3) = 2.058; MSE = 9.358; p = .123), numbers of syllable (F(3) = 1.431; MSE = 0.867; p = .250) and absolute frequency on books (F(3) = 1.495; MSE = 569.767; p = .232), as determined by Colfis, a lexical database of written Italian (Bertinetto et al., 2005). Importantly, the sub-categories differ in the level of concreteness (F(3) = 26.080; MSE = 139520.892; p

L’effetto Simon consiste in un vantaggio della prestazione in termini di velocità e accuratezza quando la posizione della risposta corrisponde a quella dello stimolo anche se questa è irrilevante. Il presente lavoro, utilizzando un compito di decisione lessicale, ha indagato l’emergere dell’effetto Simon e il suo decorso temporale con stimoli linguistici senza significato (non parole) e stimoli linguistici con significato (parole) che non rimanda a una codifica spaziale. I risultati mostrano che il tipo di stimolo modula sia l’emergere dell’effetto Simon, sia il suo andamento. Si osserva, infatti, che per le parole, l’effetto Simon non emerge e il suo decorso temporale non mostra variazioni significative, mentre per le non parole emerge e mostra un andamento significativamente decrescente.

An emerging class of theories of knowledge assumes that the representation and processing of concepts is achieved by reactivating multiple aspects of experience. Abstract concepts such as freedom and justice constitute a challenge for these theories because they have no clearly identifiable referent that we can experience. The Words As social Tools theory (WAT) posits that while both concrete and abstract concepts activate sensorimotor networks, the linguistic network is activated more by abstract than by concrete concepts given that the mode of acquisition of abstract concepts relies more on language. In this chapter we extend this argument and report results from an experiment with the Extrinsic Simon task suggesting that when we process abstract words we re-enact the experience of their acquisition and/or explain to ourselves their meaning.

To explain how abstract concepts, like “truth”, are represented is pivotal for embodied and grounded theories, according to which concepts are grounded in sensorimotor system. An important novelty in recent literature is the recognition that abstract concepts are not a unitary whole, but there might exist sub-kinds of abstract concepts, that are differently represented. Some studies have started to explore the differences between abstract concepts, such as mathematical, emotional, institutional and social concepts. However, an accurate classification has not yet been provided. The aim of our work is to identify fine-grained differences between abstract concepts. We selected 425 abstract words and classified them into preexisting and new categories of concepts: mathematical and logic, social, linguistics, institutional, temporal, spatial, mental states, characteristics of the self, events, pure abstract, imaginary, knowledge areas, cognitive processes, bodily states and physical. A sample of 240 participants rated words on a 7-points Likert-type scale on various dimensions. Aside classical dimensions, like concreteness, abstractness, and imageability, we considered novel dimensions highlighted by recent studies: age and modality of acquisition (perceptual vs linguistic); valence (positive and negative); social dimension; Body-object interaction; perceptual modality and interoception. Preliminary results highlighted a distinction between two macro-kinds of concepts, characterized by a different level of grounding. “Emotions” and “Bodily states” obtained higher BOI and interoception ratings than other categories. “Institutional concepts” and “Knowledge domains” were judged with higher MoA, i.e. mostly linguistically acquired. Our results suggest that differences in concepts kinds thus do not depend only on content but also on mechanisms like interoception and language activation.

Previous research investigating handle-response compatibility effects with graspable objects used different categories of objects as stimuli, regardless of their specific, intrinsic characteristics. The current study explores whether different types of objects’ characteristics may elicit different types of spatial compatibility, that is, handle-response and response-effect compatibility as well as their potential interaction. In Experiment 1, objects having a graspable handle opposite to either a visible functional component (i.e., handle-function objects: a teapot) or a latent functional component (handle-only objects: a pitcher lacking the spout) were presented separately in different blocks. Both the handle and the goal-directed functional components of these objects were located on the horizontal axis. In Experiment 2, handle-only objects had a handle located on the horizontal axis and a latent functional component located on the vertical axis (e.g., a cup). In both experiments, participants were required to judge the material (plastic and metal) the object was made of. Results showed that the handle-response compatibility effect was sensitive to whether the actions consequences of object manipulation took place on the horizontal rather than on the vertical axis.