The Neurology of Abstraction
Further information: Intelligence, Mental rotation, and Mental operationsA recent meta-analysis suggests that the verbal system has greater engagement for abstract concepts when the perceptual system is more engaged for processing of concrete concepts. This is because abstract concepts elicit greater brain activity in the inferior frontal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus compared to concrete concepts when concrete concepts elicit greater activity in the posterior cingulate, precuneus, fusiform gyrus, and parahippocampal gyrus.
Other research into the human brain suggests that the left and right hemispheres differ in their handling of abstraction. For example, one meta-analysis reviewing human brain lesions has shown a left hemisphere bias during tool usage.
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Famous quotes containing the word abstraction:
“When truth is nothing but the truth, it’s unnatural, it’s an abstraction that resembles nothing in the real world. In nature there are always so many other irrelevant things mixed up with the essential truth. That’s why art moves you—precisely because it’s unadulterated with all the irrelevancies of real life.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)