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Concrete or Perceptual Concepts vs Abstract Concepts

Concrete concepts are objects that can be perceived by personal sensations and perceptions. These are objects like chairs and dogs where we personally can have an interaction with them and create a concept. Concepts become more concrete as the word we use to associate with it has a perceivable entity .According to Paivio’s dual -coding theory concrete concepts are the one that is remembered easier from their perceptual memory codes. Evidence has shown that when we hear words that are associated with a concrete concept we re-enact any previous interaction with the word within the sensorimotor system. Examples of concrete concepts in learning are math concepts, adding and subtracting, and science concepts.

Abstract concepts are words and ideas that deal with emotions, personality traits and events. Words like fantasy or cold have a more abstract concept within them. Every person has their personal definition, which is ever changing and comparing, of abstract concepts. For example, cold could mean the physical temperature of the surrounding area or it could define the action and personality of another person. While within concrete concepts there is still a level of abstractness, concrete and abstract concepts can be seen on a scale. Some ideas like chair and dog are more cut and dry in their perceptions but concepts like cold and fantasy can be seen in an a more obscure way. Examples of abstract concept learning are topics like religion and ethics. Abstract-concept learning is seeing the comparison of the stimuli based on a rule (e.g., identity, difference, oddity, greater than, addition, subtraction) and when it is a novel stimulus. With abstract-concept learning  have three criteria’s to rule out any alternative explanations to define the novelty of the stimuli. One transfer stimuli has to be novel to the individual. Two, there is no replication of the transfer stimuli. Third and lastly,  to have a full abstract learning experience there has to be an equal amount of baseline performance and transfer performance.

Binder, Westbury, McKiernan, Possing, and Medler (2005) used fMRI to scan individuals' brains as they made lexical decisions on abstract and concrete concepts. Abstract concepts elicited greater activation in the left precentral gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus and sulcus, and left superior temporal gyrus, whereas concrete concepts elicited greater activation in bilateral angular gyri, the right middle temporal gyrus, the left middle frontal gyrus, bilateral posterior cingulate gyri, and bilateral precunei.

In 1986 Allan Paivio hypothesized the Dual Coding Theory, which states that both verbal and visual information is used to represent information. When thinking of the concept “dog” we think of both the word dog and an image of a dog. Dual Coding Theory assumes that abstract concepts involve the verbal semantic system and concrete concepts are additionally involved with the visual imaginary system.

Defined (or Relational) and Associated Concepts

Relational and associated concepts are words, ideas and thoughts that are connected in some form. For relational concepts they are connected in a universal definition. Common relational terms are up-down, left-right, and food-dinner. These ideas are learned in our early childhood and are important for children to understand. These concepts are integral within our understanding and reasoning in conservation tasks. Relational terms that are verbs and prepositions have a large influence on how objects are understood. These terms are more likely to create a larger understanding of the object and they are able to cross over to other languages.

Whereas associated concepts are connected by the individual’s past and own perception. Associative concept learning (also called functional concept learning) involves categorizing stimuli based on a common response or outcome regardless of perceptual similarity into appropriate categories .This is associating these thoughts and ideas with other thoughts and ideas that are understood by a few or the individual. An example of this is in elementary school when learning the direction of the compass North, East, South and West. Teacher have used “never eat soggy waffles”, “never eat sour worms” and students were able to create their own version to help them learn the directions (Mnemonic device for the wind directions North East South West).