Taxonomic and Thematic Semantic Systems #MMPMID28333494
Mirman D; Landrigan JF; Britt AE
Psychol Bull 2017[May]; 143 (5): 499-520 PMID28333494show ga
Object concepts are critical for nearly all aspects of human cognition, from perception tasks like object recognition, to understanding and producing language, to making meaningful actions. Concepts can have two very different kinds of relations: similarity relations based on shared features (e.g., dog ? bear), which are called ?taxonomic? relations, and contiguity relations based on co-occurrence in events or scenarios (e.g., dog ? leash), which are called ?thematic? relations. Here we report a systematic review of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience evidence of this distinction in the structure of semantic memory. We propose two principles that may drive the development of distinct taxonomic and thematic semantic systems: (1) differences between which features determine taxonomic vs. thematic relations and (2) differences in the processing required to extract taxonomic vs. thematic relations. This review brings together distinct threads of behavioral, computational, and neuroscience research on semantic memory in support of a functional and neural dissociation, and defines a framework for future studies of semantic memory.
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Psychol+Bull 2017 ; 143 (5): 499-520
