Cognitive neuroscience research on conceptual knowledge often is discussed with respect to Bembodiment^ or Bgrounding.^ We tried to disentangle at least three distinct claims made using these terms. One of these, the view that concepts are entirely reducible to sensory-motor representations , is untenable and diminishing in the literature. A second is the view that concepts and sensory-motor representations Binteract,^ and a third view addresses the question of how concepts are neurally organized-the neural partitions among concepts of different kinds, and where these partitions are localized in cortex. We argue that towards the second and third issues, much fruitful research can be pursued, but that no position on them is specifically related to Bgrounding.^ Furthermore, to move forward on them, it is important to precisely distinguish different kinds of representations-conceptual vs. sensory-motor-from each other theoretically and empirically. Neuroimaging evidence often lacks such specific-ity. We take an approach that distinguishes conceptual from sensory-motor representations by virtue of two properties: broad generality and tolerance to the absence of sensory-motor associations. We review three of our recent experiments that employ these criteria in order to localize neural representations of several specific kinds of nonsensory attributes: functions , intentions, and belief traits. Building on past work, we find that neuroimaging evidence can be used fruitfully to distinguish interesting hypotheses about neural organization. On the other hand, most such evidence does not speak to any clear notion of Bgrounding^ or Bembodiment,^ because these terms do not make clear, specific, empirical predictions. We argue that cognitive neuroscience will proceed most fruitfully by relinquishing these terms.
The present experiment identified neural regions that represent a class of concepts that are independent of perceptual or sensory attributes. During functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning, participants viewed names of social groups (e.g. Atheists, Evangelicals, and Economists) and performed a one-back similarity judgment according to 1 of 2 dimensions of belief attributes: political orientation (Liberal to Conservative) or spiritualism (Spiritualist to Materialist). By generalizing across a wide variety of social groups that possess these beliefs, these attribute concepts did not coincide with any specific sensory quality, allowing us to target conceptual, rather than perceptual, representations. Multi-voxel pattern searchlight analysis was used to identify regions in which activation patterns distinguished the 2 ends of both dimensions: Conservative from Liberal social groups when participants focused on the political orientation dimension, and spiritual from Materialist groups when participants focused on the spiritualism dimension. A cluster in right precuneus exhibited such a pattern, indicating that it carries information about belief-attribute concepts and forms part of semantic memory—perhaps a component particularly concerned with psychological traits. This region did not overlap with the theory of mind network, which engaged nearby, but distinct, parts of precuneus. These findings have implications for the neural organization of conceptual knowledge, especially the understanding of social groups.
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