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<p>According to multiple representation theory, abstract concepts emerge from multiple, partially overlapping representational systems shaped by sensorimotor experience, language, emotion, and social context, rather than from disembodied propositional thought alone. Unlike concrete concepts, they are typically less directly grounded in immediate perceptual or motor experience and more strongly shaped by linguistic, emotional, social, and cultural information. However, most multidimensional rating studies on abstract concepts have focused on European languages, and cross-linguistic work has revealed variability in the experiential “core” and associative structure of ostensibly equivalent abstract terms, suggesting that their internal organization may differ systematically across language communities. Therefore, this study aims to explore the features and representational categories of Chinese abstract concepts by feature rating 503 Chinese abstract words across 19 dimensions. Results showed four semantic components: entity, inner grounding, sociality, and learnability. Seven categories were then clustered: basic abstract terms, intrinsic human attributes and spiritual concepts, emotional concepts, disciplinary terminology, physical and spatiotemporal and quantitative concepts, interpersonal communication concepts, and social concepts. These findings suggested that learnability is an important feature in the semantic processing of Chinese abstract concepts and that Chinese people draw a clearer distinction between the individual and society. This data-driven study empirically confirms the distinctive features in the semantic construct of Chinese abstract concepts, likely reflecting the cultural influence on individuals’ conceptual processing.</p>

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Learnability and individual-society distinction: unveiling the multidimensional representation and categorization of Chinese abstract concepts

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月25日

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  • Yafang Jiang,
  • Xiangyu Wang,
  • Xiaodi He,
  • Jiehui Hu,
  • Shan Gao,
  • Zhao Gao

摘要

According to multiple representation theory, abstract concepts emerge from multiple, partially overlapping representational systems shaped by sensorimotor experience, language, emotion, and social context, rather than from disembodied propositional thought alone. Unlike concrete concepts, they are typically less directly grounded in immediate perceptual or motor experience and more strongly shaped by linguistic, emotional, social, and cultural information. However, most multidimensional rating studies on abstract concepts have focused on European languages, and cross-linguistic work has revealed variability in the experiential “core” and associative structure of ostensibly equivalent abstract terms, suggesting that their internal organization may differ systematically across language communities. Therefore, this study aims to explore the features and representational categories of Chinese abstract concepts by feature rating 503 Chinese abstract words across 19 dimensions. Results showed four semantic components: entity, inner grounding, sociality, and learnability. Seven categories were then clustered: basic abstract terms, intrinsic human attributes and spiritual concepts, emotional concepts, disciplinary terminology, physical and spatiotemporal and quantitative concepts, interpersonal communication concepts, and social concepts. These findings suggested that learnability is an important feature in the semantic processing of Chinese abstract concepts and that Chinese people draw a clearer distinction between the individual and society. This data-driven study empirically confirms the distinctive features in the semantic construct of Chinese abstract concepts, likely reflecting the cultural influence on individuals’ conceptual processing.