The concreteness effect is a well-established phenomenon; however, the way abstract and concrete concepts are stored, processed, and connected is still up for debate. Regardless, this distinction has real consequences for word retrieval in aphasia and for semantically based treatment for word retrieval in aphasia.
Chaleece Sandberg is hoping to have a lot of discussion. She will present a variety of studies from their lab aimed at understanding and leveraging abstract and concrete word processing to better address the word retrieval needs in aphasia. Please feel free to share your ideas regarding interpretation and next steps.