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anna m. borghi

* Sapienza Università di Roma; ° IST-CNR, Roma

anna.borghi@uniroma1.it

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Rome, October 14, 2026

https://sites.google.com/view/annaborghilab

@ballabrome.bsky.social

LINKAGES - Learning and usIng conCepts: Knowledge exchAnging and enGaging in innEr and Social dynamics

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LINKAGES -

Learning and usIng conCepts: Knowledge exchAnging and enGaging in innEr and Social dynamics

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Aim:

  • test the view that social interaction and knowledge exchange are constitutive of abstract concepts’ emergence, learning, and use
  • investigate knowledge outsourcing toward human and artificial experts. 
  • focus on scientific concepts of various domains.

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lifespan approach

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Presentation of LINKAGES as a whole

  • People and roles
  • Abstractness, vagueness, and social dynamics
  • Work program - studies and people
  • Introduction of onboard researchers and students
  • Comments of the advisory board

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AIM OF TODAY�

Please, interrupt with questions at any time!

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PEOPLE INVOLVED SO FAR

Claudia Mazzuca Matteo Tacconelli Anna Borghi Ilenia Falcinelli

Chiara De Livio Mara Stockner Fernando Maggio Antonio Pio Afragola

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COLLEAGUES DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN LINKAGES

Charles Fernyhough, UK Annalisa Setti, Ireland Ferdinand Binkofski, Germany

Valerio Sperati Francesco Mannella Luca Tummolini Giovanni Granato Stefano Nolfi

ISTC-CNR, Italy

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COLLEAGUES INDIRECTLY INVOLVED IN LINKAGES

Emanuele Brugnoli

Donald Ruggiero Lo Sardo

Claudio Brozzoli

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Vittorio Loreto

Angelo Mattia Gervasi

Lyon, FR

Laura Barca

Chiara Fini

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ADVISORY BOARD

Prof. Rob Goldstone

Indiana University, USA

Prof. Guy Dove

Louisville University, USA

Prof. Penny Pexman

Western University, Canada

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COMMITTEES

Commission

Main Tasks

Team

Open Science

Open Science training & reproducible pipeline.Paper support (preregistration, preprints) & FAIR principles.Ethical committee monitoring & outreach events.

Claudia Mazzuca,

Chiara De Livio

Communication

(Social)

Social media management (LinkedIn, Bluesky, Instagram).Visibility boost & promotion of papers/events.Mapping & tracking of science festivals.

Matteo Tacconelli,

Antonio Pio Afragola,

Claudia Mazzuca

Dissemination

(Website)

Website creation & regular updates.Press relations & journal/conference monitoring.Special issues proposals & outreach management.

Fernando. Maggio,

Ilenia Falcinelli,

Mara Stockner

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Presentation of LINKAGES as a whole

  • People and roles
  • Abstractness, vagueness, and social dynamics
  • Work program - studies and people
  • Introduction of onboard researchers and students
  • Comments of the advisory board

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AIM OF TODAY�

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FRASI

10

vedi metafore; idiomi

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freedom

bottle

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ABSTRACTNESS / CONCRETENESS

NO DICHOTOMY!

- sensorimotor,

- similarity,

+ interoception,

+ language,

+ variability,

+ uncertainty,

+ need of others

+ inner speech?

Reilly et al., 2024; Borghi, 2022; Dove, 2022; Mazzuca et al., 2025

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Why to study abstractness?

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  1. Abstract concepts are among the most sophisticated and flexible expressions of human cognition (e.g., Dove, 2018)
  2. Abstract concepts are ubiquitous - More than 70% of words in adult speech are abstract (Lupyan & Winter, 2018)
  3. Communicating about what is not present maximizes the role of social dynamics.

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ABSTRACTNESS

AND SOCIAL DYNAMICS�

Abstractness may

  • enhance social cohesion forcing people to find common ground
  • make the ingroup/ outgroup distinction more salient.

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Abstract concepts differ!

(Conca et al., 2021; Desai et al., 2018; Hairpaintner et al., 2018; Fischer & Shaki, 2018; Muraki et al., 2020, 2022; Villani et al., 2019; 2021; Winter, 2023)

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Borghi, Barca, Binkofski, Tummolini, 2018, Phil. Trans. B

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VARIETIES OF ABSTRACT CONCEPTS: CONCEPT KINDS

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VARIETIES OF (ABSTRACT) CONCEPTS: VAGUENESS

Borghi, Mazzuca, & Tummolini, 2025. Nature Reviews Psychology.

  • Determinate: shared and stable meaning, within a culture or among experts – e.g., number

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  • Vague: flexible and open meaning; precision not necessary –e.g., freedom

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Borghi, 2023

And how about vagueness?

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Fernyhough & Borghi, Trends in Cognitive Science (TICS), 2023

Borghi & Fernyhough, Phil. Trans. B, 2023

Drafted on Biorender; images from pixabay

Abstract concepts during their use: uncertainty, low confidence.

And how about vagueness?

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Drafted on Biorender – Borghi, 2023

COMMUNITIES OF KNOWLEDGE

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Abstractness/concreteness and social interaction

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 Much work on socialness (e.g., Pexman et al., 2023)

Here, focus on social metacognition

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  • With more abstract concepts we feel more uncertain
  •  With more abstract concepts, we need others more (to solve this uncertainty?)

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OPEN ISSUES�

Literature on communities of knowledge + abstractness

We may need others to negotiate and outsource knowledge

  • Vague abstract concepts – more negotiation?
  • Determinate abstract concepts – more outsourcing? Which role of experts?

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Necessity of further evidence, possibly also based on interactive tasks to examine conceptual USE.

 

 

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LINKAGES - VISION

AIM

rethinking concepts in light of

  • social interaction
  • communities of knowledge

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Presentation of LINKAGES as a whole

  • People and roles
  • Abstractness, vagueness, and social dynamics
  • Work program - studies and people
  • Introduction of onboard researchers and students
  • Comments of the advisory board

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AIM OF TODAY�

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PERTT

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it addresses some possible reasons for the emergence and spread of abstractness

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  • using more abstract concepts may enhance the need to align, hence increase social cohesion
  • using more abstract concepts (and more determinate ones) may have payoffs in reputation
  • using more abstract concepts (and determinate ones) may even allow excluding others (outgroup)

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Experiments inspired by experimental semiotics

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Experiments to test payoffs in reputation

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Culturomics

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WP1 - EMERGENCE

Claudia Mazzuca - researcher - cognitive science, psychology, linguistics

Matteo Tacconelli - PhD - statistical physics

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  • 1.1. A. SIGN EMERGENCE GAMES
  • hypothesis: more abstract words emerge more slowly but increase group cohesion.

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WP1 - EMERGENCE

Claudia Mazzuca

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  • 1.3. CHANGES IN SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS.
  • changes over time through diachronic study of multiple corpora. Machine learning.

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WP1 - EMERGENCE

Matteo Tacconelli - PhD - statistical physics

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PERT

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it tests the hypothesis that, to learn more abstract concepts, people

1) use more inner speech;

2) need others more.

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To address 1),

experimental studies on inner speech with new interactive methods

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To test 1) and 2), populations who report not to use inner speech and have reduced social skills (anendophasic

and autistic individuals).

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WP2 - LEARNING/TEACHING

Chiara De Livio - 3rd year Phd student - future postdoc - psychology, cognitive science

prof. Charles Fernyhough, Durham University, UK

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it tests the hypothesis that, to learn more abstract concepts, people

1) use more inner speech;

2) need others more.

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To address 1),

computational model accounting for inner speech data in different populations.

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To test 1) and 2), populations who report they do not use inner speech and have reduced social skills (anendophasia, autism).

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WP2 - LEARNING/TEACHING

Dr. Giovanni Granato - researcher at ISTC-CNR - computational neuroscience

Dr. Valerio Sperati - researcher at ISTC-CNR - computer science

Ilenia Falcinelli

Chiara De Livio

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2.6. ALIGNMENT

  • hypothesis: higher alignment with abstract than concrete concepts;
  • difference in terms of alignment between vague and determinate concepts?
  • study how alignment unfolds over time.
  • behavioral alignment
  • interbrain synchrony
  • physiological synchrony
  • linguistic alignment

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WP2 - LEARNING/TEACHING

it tests the hypothesis that, to learn more abstract concepts, people

1) use more inner speech;

2) need others more.

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it tests the hypothesis that, to learn more abstract concepts, people

1) use more inner speech;

2) need others more.

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To address 2),

  • interbrain synchrony EEG hyperscanning. fNIRS??
  • physiological synchrony: electrodermal skin response and Heart Rate variability

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WP2 - LEARNING/TEACHING

Dr. Ilenia Falcinelli - postdoc - cognitive psychology, cognitive and social neuroscience

Prof. Ferdinand Binkofski - Aachen University

Antonio Pio Afragola - PhD student - cognitive and social neuroscience

Dr. Fernando Maggio - engineering + cognitive neuroscience - technological support

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it tests the hypothesis that, to learn more abstract concepts, people

1) use more inner speech;

2) need others more.

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To address 2),

  • behavioral alignment
  • linguistic alignment

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WP2 - LEARNING/TEACHING

Dr. Fernando Maggio - engineering + cognitive neuroscience - technological support

Chiara De Livio - 3rd year Phd student - future postdoc - psychology, cognitive science

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PERTT

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it tests the hypothesis that people negotiate more the meaning of abstract than concrete concepts, and focuses on symmetrical interactions

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DIALOGUES (same methods as in WP2)

  • behavioral alignment
  • interbrain synchrony
  • physiological synchrony
  • linguistic alignment
  • correlation with ratings of pleasantness, conversation fluency, feeling of learning, confidence

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WP3 - NEGOTIATION

Dr. Ilenia Falcinelli

Prof. Ferdinand Binkofski -

Antonio Pio Afragola

Dr. Fernando Maggio

Chiara De Livio

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  • 3.2. DIALOGUES IN AUTISM
  • same task, lower alignment expected, less marked distinction ACs/CCs and vague/non vague concepts

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  • 3.3. MODEL OF ALIGNMENT

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WP3 - NEGOTIATION

Dr. Francesco Mannella, ISTC-CNR - computational neuroscientist

Dr. Ilenia Falcinelli

Dr. Valerio

Sperati

Antonio Pio Afragola

Dr. Giovanni

Granato

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Dr. Luca Tummolini,

ISTC-CNR - cognitive scientist

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PERT

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  • with which concepts, when, and to whom people outsource knowledge?
  • are knowledge illusions in interacting with experts more prominent when experts use abstract concepts (e.g., overstating of one’s own knowledge)?
  • do people outsource knowledge more with determinate abstract concepts, such as scientific and technological concepts, than with vague ones?
  • are there differences in interacting with human and artificial (AI) experts?

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WP4 - OUTSOURCING

Dr. Luca Tummolini,

ISTC-CNR - cognitive scientist

Dr. Mara Stockner

postdoc - cognitive psychology

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4.2. CATEGORIZING WITH EXPERTS

  • new category; solo vs. in pairs.
  • better performance with responsive

experts and frequent questions

  • more with determinate concepts

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WP4 - OUTSOURCING

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4.4. VIRTUAL EXPERTS

  • does experts availability increases outsourcing?
  • does interaction with AI experts increase metacognition?
  • different ages with human experts vs. chatbots.

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WP4 - OUTSOURCING

Mara Stockner

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PERT

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  • to build a crosslinguistic dataset of scientific concepts from different areas, each with different contexts, and test how meaning varies

as a function of context and how to best convey scientific information.

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  • to capture through word embedding differences due to conceptual abstractness and vagueness and their variations due to expertise.

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WP5 - EXPERTISE AND SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS

Dr.Annalisa Setti,

University College Cork, Ireland - psychologist

Dr.Stefano Nolfi, ISTC-CNR - computer scientist, roboticist

Claudia Mazzuca

Russell Neil Eaton, intern student

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5.1. DATABASE

Scientific concepts - Italian-, German-, and English-speakers.

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WP5 - EXPERTISE AND SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS

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  • to capture through word embedding differences due to conceptual abstractness and vagueness and their variations due to expertise.

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5.3. WORD EMBEDDING

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WP5 - EXPERTISE AND SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS

Dr.Stefano Nolfi, ISTC-CNR - computer scientist, roboticist

Russell Neil Eaton, intern student

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5.4. COMMUNICATION

  • Aim: Better convey scientific concepts.
  • Children and people of different ages and expertise rate the learning value and efficacy of the database sentences.

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WP5 - EXPERTISE AND SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS

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RISKS

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Presentation of LINKAGES as a whole

  • People and roles
  • Abstractness, vagueness and social dynamics
  • Work program - studies and people
  • Introduction of onboard researchers and students
  • Comments of the advisory board

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AIM OF TODAY�

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Presentation of LINKAGES as a whole

  • People and roles
  • Abstractness, vagueness and social dynamics
  • Work program - studies and people
  • Introduction of onboard researchers and students
  • Comments of the advisory board

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AIM OF TODAY�