  Entity- and event-level conceptualization, as fundamental elements of human
cognition, plays a pivotal role in generalizable reasoning. This process
involves abstracting specific instances into higher-level concepts and forming
abstract knowledge that can be applied in unfamiliar or novel situations, which
can enhance models' inferential capabilities and support the effective transfer
of knowledge across various domains. Despite its significance, there is
currently a lack of a systematic overview that comprehensively examines
existing works in the definition, execution, and application of
conceptualization to enhance reasoning tasks. In this paper, we address this
gap by presenting the first comprehensive survey of 150+ papers, categorizing
various definitions, resources, methods, and downstream applications related to
conceptualization into a unified taxonomy, with a focus on the entity and event
levels. Furthermore, we shed light on potential future directions in this field
and hope to garner more attention from the community.
