from Part VI - Conceptual Models of Semantics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 September 2009
The work described in this chapter is motivated by the conviction that a cognitive theory of semantic memory is best suited to investigate the functional and neural bases of the semantic memory system. The advantage of this approach is that detailed hypotheses about the structure and function of the semantic system can be formulated and then tested in behavioral experiments with healthy individuals and neurologically impaired patients. The challenge is then to identify the neural correlates of these experimentally validated cognitive structures and processes, i.e. their neural substrates and mechanisms. The cognitive model provides a detailed framework for this investigation which, when combined with the appropriate functional–neuroanatomical technique, provides the potential to meet this challenge.
The first part of this chapter describes the Conceptual Structure Account (CSA), a cognitive model developed at the Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain. We will present the results of neuropsychological studies with patients and healthy volunteers that have tested the main claims of this model. The CSA has been the driving force in the generation of hypotheses on the neural organization of semantic memory. In the second part of this chapter, we will describe our attempts to investigate the neural instantiation of the CSA using functional imaging techniques. In particular, we will concentrate on our recent research efforts which have combined the hypotheses of the CSA with those of a hierarchical model of object processing in the ventral temporal lobe, developed in nonhuman primates, to guide the fine-grained testing of neural systems involved in semantic memory of objects (Bright et al., 2005; Moss et al., 2005; Tyler et al., 2004).
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