Conceptual structure: Towards an integrated neurocognitive account

Abstract

How are the meanings of concepts represented and processed? We present a cognitive model of conceptual representations and processing—the Conceptual Structure Account (CSA; Tyler & Moss, 2001 Tyler, L. K., & Moss, H. E. (2001). Towards a distributed account of conceptual knowledge. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5, 244–252. [Google Scholar] )—as an example of a distributed, feature-based approach. In the first section, we describe the CSA and evaluate relevant neuropsychological and experimental behavioural data. We discuss studies using linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli, which are both presumed to access the same conceptual system. We then take the CSA as a framework for hypothesising how conceptual knowledge is represented and processed in the brain. This neurocognitive approach attempts to integrate the distributed feature-based characteristics of the CSA with a distributed and feature-based model of sensory object processing. Based on a review of relevant functional imaging and neuropsychological data, we argue that distributed accounts of feature-based representations have considerable explanatory power, and that a cognitive model of conceptual representations is needed to understand their neural bases.