Interoceptive grounding of conceptual knowledge: new insight from an interoceptive-exteroceptive categorization task of concepts.

ABSTRACT: The role of interoception, the sensing of internal bodily signals, in shaping our understanding of concepts remains an intriguing and understudied area of research. Here, we investigate the interoceptive foundation of conceptual representation, particularly for abstract concepts compared to concrete ones. Using a novel mouse-tracking paradigm, participants categorized various types of abstract and concrete concepts (i.e., abstract emotional, abstract philosophical, concrete natural and concrete artifact) as interoceptive (i.e., experienced through internal bodily sensations) or exteroceptive (i.e., experienced through the five perceptual senses). Results on the reaction times show that abstract-emotional concepts were more readily classified as interoceptive than abstract-philosophical con

SUBMITTER: Barca L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12764517 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature