Pregnancy reshapes the interoceptive and sensorimotor characterization of abstract and concrete concepts: A rating study
Giuseppina Porciello, Laura Barca, Chiara Fini, Cristina Trentini, Cristiano Violani, Anna M Borghi
PsyArXiv August 14, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/pjc64_v2 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cross-sectional comparison (rating task) |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 81 |
| Population | Women: 40 pregnant and 41 age-matched non-pregnant controls |
| Measures | MAIA, GAD-7, TAS-20, BDI-II |
| Key findings | Abstract concepts were rated higher in interoceptive strength and emotionality, and concrete concepts higher in exteroception and body-object interaction. Pregnancy modulated these representations: pregnant women rated abstract concepts as more interoceptive, emotional, and concrete than controls, and gave concrete concepts higher body-object interaction scores. The authors argue this supports an embodied, dynamic account in which conceptual knowledge is shaped by current physiological and interoceptive states. |
Abstract
Recent theories of embodied cognition suggest that conceptual knowledge is grounded not only in external sensory experiences but also in internal bodily states. Interoception, the sensing of physiological signals from within the body, has been identified as a key modality for representing abstract concepts. However, whether this grounding is dynamically modulated by significant physiological transitions remains unexplored. The present study investigates how the profound bodily changes occurring during pregnancy influence the semantic characterization of abstract and concrete concepts.Eighty-one (40 pregnant, 41 age-matched non-pregnant controls) women performed a rating task on 40 words (20 abstract, 20 concrete) across several dimensions: abstractness, concreteness, emotionality, valence, exteroception, interoception, and Body-Object Interaction (BOI). Participants also completed clinical and interoceptive sensibility self-reported questionnaires (MAIA, GAD-7, TAS-20, BDI-II).Results confirmed that abstract concepts are characterized by higher interoceptive strength and emotionality, while concrete concepts are more strongly associated with exteroception and BOI, in line with current literature. Crucially, however, pregnancy significantly modulated these representations: pregnant women rated abstract concepts as more interoceptive, emotional and more concrete compared to the control group. Furthermore, pregnant women attributed higher BOI scores to concrete concepts, suggesting an increased sensitivity to potential physical interactions between their changing body and the environment. Hence, our results reveal that, with concrete words, pregnant women pay more attention to their bodily experience of external objects; with abstract words, they tend to pay more attention to their inner and affective bodily signals. These findings provide novel evidence for the embodied and dynamic nature of conceptual knowledge, showing that conceptual representations are flexibly modulated in response to the individual's current physiological and interoceptive state.