TY - JOUR
T1 - The similarity-in-topography principle
T2 - Reconciling theories of conceptual deficits
AU - Simmons, W. Kyle
AU - Barsalou, Lawrence W.
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to Alex Martin and Alfonso Caramazza for the opportunity to write this article. We are also grateful to Aron Barbey, Sergio Chaigneau, George Cree, Glyn Humphreys, Jay McClelland, and Ken McRae for helpful comments on earlier drafts. This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grants SBR-9905024 and BCS-0212134 to Lawrence W. Barsalou.
PY - 2003/5/1
Y1 - 2003/5/1
N2 - Three theories currently compete to explain the conceptual deficits that result from brain damage: sensory-functional theory, domain-specific theory, and conceptual structure theory. We argue that all three theories capture important aspects of conceptual deficits, and offer different insights into their origins. Conceptual topography theory (CTT) integrates these insights, beginning with A. R. Damasio's (1989) convergence zone theory and elaborating it with the similarity-in-topography (SIT) principle. According to CTT, feature maps in sensory-motor systems represent the features of a category's exemplars. A hierarchical system of convergence zones then conjoins these features to form both property and category representations. According to the SIT principle, the proximity of two conjunctive neurons in a convergence zone increases with the similarity of the features they conjoin. As a result, conjunctive neurons become topographically organised into local regions that represent properties and categories. Depending on the level and location of a lesion in this system, a wide variety of deficits is possible. Consistent with the literature, these deficits range from the loss of a single category to the loss of multiple categories that share sensory-motor properties.
AB - Three theories currently compete to explain the conceptual deficits that result from brain damage: sensory-functional theory, domain-specific theory, and conceptual structure theory. We argue that all three theories capture important aspects of conceptual deficits, and offer different insights into their origins. Conceptual topography theory (CTT) integrates these insights, beginning with A. R. Damasio's (1989) convergence zone theory and elaborating it with the similarity-in-topography (SIT) principle. According to CTT, feature maps in sensory-motor systems represent the features of a category's exemplars. A hierarchical system of convergence zones then conjoins these features to form both property and category representations. According to the SIT principle, the proximity of two conjunctive neurons in a convergence zone increases with the similarity of the features they conjoin. As a result, conjunctive neurons become topographically organised into local regions that represent properties and categories. Depending on the level and location of a lesion in this system, a wide variety of deficits is possible. Consistent with the literature, these deficits range from the loss of a single category to the loss of multiple categories that share sensory-motor properties.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0038147948&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/02643290342000032
DO - 10.1080/02643290342000032
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:0038147948
SN - 0264-3294
VL - 20
SP - 451
EP - 486
JO - Cognitive Neuropsychology
JF - Cognitive Neuropsychology
IS - 3-6
ER -