Ana Rita Sá-Leite (a,b), Juan Haro (c), Montserrat Comesaña (d,e), & Isabel Fraga (b)
(a) Dept. de Psicología Experimental, Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro y Comportamiento, Universidad de Granada, España
(b) Cognitive Processes and Behaviour Research Group, Dept. de Psicología Social, Básica, y Metodología, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, España
(c) Dept. de Psicología, Research Center for Behavior Assessment (CRAMC), Universidad Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, España
(d) Research Unit in Human Cognition, Centro de Investigação em Psicologia (CIPsi), School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
(e) Nebrija Research Center in Cognition (CINC), Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, España
(cc) Ana Rita Sá.
Our brain is ancestrally wired to detect and process stimuli that are relevant for survival such as animates (i.e., entities that are alive, e.g., bats). Extensive research shows that many areas of our cognition give animates a special processing when compared to inanimates, even when inanimates may constitute a threat for life (vehicles). Recently, we obtained evidence that naming a simple animate noun may differ from that of an inanimate noun. This is probably due to attentional mechanisms favoring animates and a deeper conceptual processing of animacy to the detriment of other not-so-relevant features such as grammatical gender.
