Regional brain activations differ for semantic features but not categories.
Is human semantic knowledge neurally organised according to either category (e.g. living non-living) or attribute type (e.g. perceptual non-perceptual information)? Normal subjects were scanned using PET during a novel semantic production task, in which they generated either perceptual or non-perceptual information in response to names of living or non-living concepts. Analyses of blood flow in the temporal lobes revealed no significant differences associated with responses to living non-living concepts. Comparisons between retrieval of perceptual non-perceptual information, however, revealed significantly greater blood flow in left posterior inferior temporal cortex and right fusiform cortex associated with perceptual information and in left middle temporal cortex with non-perceptual information. These findings support a primarily attribute-based neural organisation of semantic knowledge.
Lee
Andy C H
AC
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 2EF.
Graham
Kim S
KS
Simons
Jon S
JS
Hodges
John R
JR
Owen
Adrian M
AM
Patterson
Karalyn
K
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology; D012660:Semantics; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000098:blood supply / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed