abstractness

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Joost,
  The dimension of abstractness of individual content words has been
extensively examined in the field that is now called psycholinguistics and
was earlier known as verbal learning.  In 1971 Allan Paivio published an
extremely comprehensive examination of much of this literature in his book
"Imagery and Verbal Processes".  Paivio's particular goal was to find support
for his dual code (vision and language) theory.  However, one of the
important points he makes is that concrete words are processed more
thoroughly and quickly than are abstract words.  He believes this is because
they have better access to imagery and the quicker, faster visual system.
  Between pages 65 and 80, Paivio reviews the work on norms for the
concreteness-abstractness dimension.  There are lists from Gorman, Paivio and
Yuille, and others.  Morton Gernsbacher found in her dissertation work that
was eventually published in Psych Review that the dimensions of concreteness
and imageability are highly correlated and that both are also related to
other dimensions.
  So this is a big literature, but it tends to focus on nouns and adjectives
and the bulk of the words included are not even relevant to children.
However, you may find some of the principles relevant and a few of the norms
may provide guidance.

--Brian MacWhinney