Organization and Structure of Conceptual Representations

Leshinskaya, Anna; Caramazza, Alfonso

doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199735471.013.025

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The embodied cognition hypothesis has been applied to many domains of cognitive processing, and the empirical evidence discussed here is heavily curated (for broader reviews and diverse theoretical viewpoints, see Allport, 1985; Avenanti, Candidi, & Urgesi, 2013; Barsalou, 1999; Binder & Desai, 2011; Caramazza, Anzellotti, Strnad, & Lingnau, 2014; Chatterjee, 2010; Dove, 2009; Gallese & Lakoff, 2005; Glenberg & Gallese, 2012; Hauk & Tschentscher, 2013; Hickok, 2014; Kemmerer, in press; Kiefer & Pulvermüller, 2012; Lambon Ralph, 2013; Leshinskaya & Caramazza, 2014; Mahon, 2014, in press; Mahon & Caramazza, 2008; Martin, 2007, 2009; Masson, 2015; Meteyard, Rodriguez-Cuadrado, Bahrami & Vigliocco, 2012; Pulvermüller, 2005, 2013; Simmons & Barsalou, 2003; Van dam, van Dijk, Bekkering, & Rueschemeyer, 2012; Willems & Casasanto, 2011; Willems & Francken, 2012; A. D. Wilson & Golonka, 2013; M.…”

Section: Scope Of the Current Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The burden of embodied cognition.

Mahon¹

2015

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The thesis of embodied cognition has developed as an alternative to the view that cognition is mediated, at least in part, by symbolic representations. A useful testing ground for the embodied cognition hypothesis is the representation of concepts. An embodied view of concept representation argues that concepts are represented in a modality-specific format. I argue that questions about representational format are tractable only in the context of explicit hypotheses about how information spreads among conceptual representations and sensorimotor systems. When reasonable alternatives to the embodied cognition hypothesis are clearly defined, the available evidence does not distinguish between the embodied cognition hypothesis and those alternatives. Furthermore, I argue, the available data that are theoretically constraining indicate that concepts are more than just sensory and motor content. As such, the embodied/nonembodied debate is either largely resolved or at a point where the embodied and nonembodied approaches are no longer coherently distinct theories. This situation merits a reconsideration of what the available evidence can tell us about the structure of the conceptual system. I suggest that it is the independence of thought from perception and action that makes human cognition special— and that independence is made possible by the representational distinction between concepts and sensorimotor representations.

show abstract

Section: Scope Of the Current Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The burden of embodied cognition.

Mahon¹

2015

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The null or default hypothesis for explaining that motor activation, following the analogy to the automatic activation of the phonology of unproduced words, is that activation automatically cascades from semantic representations to motor representations. Key to this default explanation is the idea that motor activation is subsequent to, and contingent upon, semantic analysis of the input (for evidence, see Papeo et al, 2014; for critical discussion, see Bedney and Caramazza, 2011; Leshinkaya and Caramazza, 2014; in press; see also Hauk and Tschentscher, 2013; Kemmerer and Gonzalez Castillo, 2010). 1 This ‘default’ explanation does not imply that meaning is embodied.…”

Section: Embodied Cognition: or Is It A Methodological Error?mentioning

confidence: 99%

What is embodied about cognition?

Mahon

2014

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

181

149

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is currently debated whether the meanings of words and objects are represented, in whole or in part, in a modality-specific format—the embodied cognition hypothesis. I argue that the embodied/disembodied cognition debate is either largely resolved in favor of the view that concepts are represented in an amodal format, or at a point where the embodied and disembodied approaches are no longer coherently distinct theories. This merits reconsideration of what the available evidence can tell us about the structure of the conceptual system. We know that the conceptual system engages, online, with sensory and motor content. This frames a new question: How is it that the human conceptual system is able to disengage from the sensorimotor system? Answering this question would say something about how the human mind is able to detach from the present and extrapolate from finite experience to hypothetical states of how the world could be. It is the independence of thought from perception and action that makes human cognition special—and that independence is guaranteed by the representational distinction between concepts and sensorimotor representations.

show abstract

“…Likewise, the activation of neural regions associated with sensory or motor information during conceptual retrieval (e.g., Hauk, Johnsrude, & Pulvermüller, 2004) is evidence about interaction, and not about reducibility (even granting that those regions are purely sensory-motor, which is not always evident). There is extensive treatment of this argument elsewhere (Bedny & Caramazza, 2011;Binder & Desai, 2011;Chatterjee, 2010;Leshinskaya & Caramazza, 2014b;Mahon & Caramazza, 2008;Mahon, 2014).…”

Section: Versions Of Embodiment: What Is Really At Stake?mentioning

confidence: 99%

For a cognitive neuroscience of concepts: Moving beyond the grounding issue

Leshinskaya

Caramazza

2016

Psychon Bull Rev

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Organization and Structure of Conceptual Representations

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

The burden of embodied cognition.

The burden of embodied cognition.

What is embodied about cognition?

For a cognitive neuroscience of concepts: Moving beyond the grounding issue

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About