Merging affordances and (abstract) concepts

The notion of affordance posits important challenges for the investigation of language and abstract concepts. Studies on affordances and language indicate that language is grounded in the sensorimotor system and also that language filters and selects information derived from affordances. Literature on affordances can be relevant for the comprehension of concepts, and particularly of abstract ones, for at least two reasons. First, affordances might play a role in the emergence of abstract concepts (e.g., freedom). When forming abstract concepts, we avoid focusing on object affordances and collect the categorical exemplars based on affordances relying on common sociocultural practices. Second, because to learn and use abstract concepts we might need other people more than to acquire and use concrete concepts, other people might evoke social affordances. These processes might be differently modulated by various kinds of affordances (e.g., motor, sociocultural) and vary depending on the considered kind of abstract concepts.