Processing concrete and abstract words 

The words that make up our language can be divided into two categories of concepts: concrete and abstract. Concrete words refer to things that exist in reality (e.g., animals, books, food) and that are experienced through the five senses. Abstract words (e.g., love, fear) tend to be more emotionally charged, not experienced through the senses and defined through other associated words rather than physical features. “Although it is clear that different brain areas are involved in semantic processing of abstract and concrete words, it is still a matter of debate which brain areas encode the different types of information underlying the meaning of abstract and concrete words,” wrote Maria Montefinese, PhD, author of the review.

Montefinese analyzed three studies that identified and observed specific regions of the brain that organize abstract and concrete concepts. The volunteers in all of the studies were assigned language-related tasks while undergoing imaging tests of the brain:

* A group of native English speakers completed two tasks involving a set of 40 concrete words. The first task instructed the volunteers to answer questions about the visual aspects of the words (i.e., “is it round?”). The second task required them to answer questions about general, more abstract characteristics of the words, such as “is it living?” The researchers found that the perirhinal cortex, an area of the brain associated with memory and recognition, processed the information from both tasks. However, the parahippocampal cortex, a brain region associated with memory formation, only responded to the second tasks involving non-visual questions.

Source: Brain processes concrete and abstract words differently