Concepts and Categories: A Cognitive Neuropsychological Perspective

Abstract

One of the most provocative and exciting issues in cognitive science is how neural specificity for semantic categories of common objects arises in the functional architecture of the brain. More than two decades of research on the neuropsychological phenomenon of category-specific semantic deficits has generated detailed claims about the organization and representation of conceptual knowledge. More recently, researchers have sought to test hypotheses developed on the basis of neuropsychological evidence with functional imaging. From those two fields, the empirical generalization emerges that object domain and sensory modality jointly constrain the organization of knowledge in the brain. At the same time, research within the embodied cognition framework has highlighted the need to articulate how information is communicated between the sensory and motor systems, and processes that represent and generalize abstract information. Those developments point toward a new approach for understanding category specificity in terms of the coordinated influences of diverse regions and cognitive systems.

Right fusiform response patterns reflect visual object identity rather than semantic similarity

“…Caution needs to be exercised when MVPA is applied to study category effects as subtle perceptual differences between classes of objects may be picked up by this highly sensitive method. Visuoperceptual similarity between entities from a same category is often intertwined with category membership, at least if stimuli are only presented through the visual input-modality and in particularly so when broad categories such as animate versus inanimate entities are compared (Devlin et al, 2002;Forde et al, 1997;Gale et al, 2001;Garrard et al, 2001;Mahon and Caramazza, 2009;Op de Beeck et al, 2008;Pilgrim et al, 2005;Pulvermüller et al, 2009;Rogers and McClelland, 2004;Sartori and Job, 1988). Some previous MVPA studies of semantic category effects (e.g.…”

Abstract Concepts in Grounded Cognition

“…The current studies reveal that even highly abstract concepts as morality are metaphorically structured in concrete experiences. Although the extent to which sensorimotor information is necessarily activated to process concepts remains to be determined (Mahon & Caramazza, 2009;Meteyard & Vigliocco, 2008;Zwaan, 2009), sensory information seems to be an important source of structure and meaning for abstract concepts. Given this strong relationship between sensory information and abstract concepts, embodied theories of cognition can improve our understanding of how people think and talk about abstract concepts such as morality.…”

“…According to these grounded approaches to cognition, conceptual thought consists of representations built on concrete sensorimotor information. For example, understanding the word 'kick' is assumed to depend at least in part on the activation of the muscles used to perform a kicking motion.As a result of the growing number of empirical studies that have investigated the role of sensorimotor activation in language comprehension, a consensus is emerging that sensorimotor areas in the brain are activated when people read words related to concrete concepts (Zwaan, 2009;Mahon & Caramazza, 2009;Vigliocco & Meteyard, 2008). For example, thinking about the color of a banana activates brain areas in the visual cortex (Simmons, Ramjee, Beauchamp, McRae, Martin, & Barsalou, 2007).…”

Spanish semantic feature production norms for 400 concrete concepts

“…Salient exceptions (44): food (6), musical instruments (14), body parts (19), and nature (5). Food, musical instruments, and body parts are exceptional cases because, according to the category-specific deficits literature they do not behave neither as nonliving nor living things (see Mahon & Caramazza, 2009). We also added the category nature as a salient exception because it includes concepts such as cloud and moon that are nonliving but, at the same time, are not manufactured by men.…”