Abstract
Signs and symbols relate to concepts and can be used to speak about objects, actions, and their features. Theories of semantic grounding address the question how the latter two, concepts and real-world entities, come into play and interlink in symbol learning. Here, a neurobiological model is used to spell out concrete mechanisms of symbol grounding, which implicate the "association" of information about sign and referents and, at the same time, the extraction of semantic features and the formation of abstract representations best described as conjoined and disjoined feature sets that may or may not have a real-life equivalent. The mechanistic semantic circuits carrying these feature sets are not static conceptual entries, but exhibit rich activation dynamics related to memory, prediction, and contextual modulation. Four key issues in specifying these activation dynamics will be highlighted: (a) the inner structure of semantic circuits, (b) mechanisms of semantic priming, (c) task specificity in semantic activation, and (d) context-dependent semantic circuit activation in the processing of referential, existential, and universal statements. These linguistic-semantic examples show that specific mechanisms are required to account for context-dependent semantic function or conceptual "flexibility." Static context-independent concepts as such are insufficient to account for these different semantic functions. Whereas abstract amodal models of concepts did so far not spell out concrete mechanisms for context-dependent semantic function, neuronal assembly mechanisms offer a workable perspective.
Highlights
The question about concepts and the brain is an exciting one, some models addressing this domain have left scholars dissatisfied, especially in answering this question by pointing to rectangles carrying the words “concepts” and “meaning” or to a labeled brain area
Following insights from philosophy (Carnap & Bar-Hillel, 1952; Frege, 1918), cognitive and language scientists described meaning in terms of semantic features (Katz & Fodor, 1963; L€obner, 2014), that is, predicates that can be attributed to all elements that fall into the category labeled by a word or symbol
The neurobiological model implies that the degree of correlation between symbol form and referent activations gradually determines the strength of semantic links. Factors that determine this symbolic link between a word form circuit and a semantic feature neuron include (a) the degree to which the feature is shared by different referents, (b) the frequency with which the symbol is used to speak about referents exhibiting the feature, and (c) the degree to which the feature correlates with other semantic features of the same symbol
Summary
The question about concepts and the brain is an exciting one, some models addressing this domain have left scholars dissatisfied, especially in answering this question by pointing to rectangles carrying the words “concepts” and “meaning” (see Davis, 1989) or to a labeled brain area. The “concept” understood in this way includes the information about how to use a word or symbol to speak about aspects of the world It is one of the main jobs of the concept—not its only job though—to provide the mental glue between sign and referent (see Frege, 1892; L€obner, 2014; Quine, 1960). These two aspects of meaning, concept and referents, are sometimes labeled the “intension” and “extension” of the sign
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