Preserved Tool Knowledge in the Context of Impaired Action Knowledge: Implications for Models of Semantic Memory

Frank E Garcea,Mary Dombovy,Bradford Z Mahon

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00120

Frank E Garcea, Mary Dombovy + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00120

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Abstract

A number of studies have observed that the motor system is activated when processing the semantics of manipulable objects. Such phenomena have been taken as evidence that simulation over motor representations is a necessary and intermediary step in the process of conceptual understanding. Cognitive neuropsychological evaluations of patients with impairments for action knowledge permit a direct test of the necessity of motor simulation in conceptual processing. Here, we report the performance of a 47-year-old male individual (Case AA) and six age-matched control participants on a number of tests probing action and object knowledge. Case AA had a large left-hemisphere frontal-parietal lesion and hemiplegia affecting his right arm and leg. Case AA presented with impairments for object-associated action production, and his conceptual knowledge of actions was severely impaired. In contrast, his knowledge of objects such as tools and other manipulable objects was largely preserved. The dissociation between action and object knowledge is difficult to reconcile with strong forms of the embodied cognition hypothesis. We suggest that these, and other similar findings, point to the need to develop tractable hypotheses about the dynamics of information exchange among sensory, motor and conceptual processes.

Highlights

On a daily basis we do remarkable things: we drive our automobiles to work, we send messages to our friends with the push of a few buttons, and use tools that extend the capabilities of our bodies
The first clear articulation of this proposal was by Allport (1985): “The essential idea is that the same neural elements that are involved in coding the sensory attributes of a object presented to the eye or hand or ear make up the elements of the auto-associated activity-patterns that represent familiar object concepts in ‘semantic memory.’
DIRECTIONS We have argued that the available patient evidence, together with the new data that we have reported, are difficult to reconcile with strong forms of the embodied cognition hypothesis of manipulable object recognition

Summary

Introduction

On a daily basis we do remarkable things: we drive our automobiles to work, we send messages to our friends with the push of a few buttons, and use tools that extend the capabilities of our bodies. “The essential idea is that the same neural elements that are involved in coding the sensory attributes of a (possibly unknown) object presented to the eye or hand or ear make up the elements of the auto-associated activity-patterns that represent familiar object concepts in ‘semantic memory.’. This model is, in radical opposition to the view, apparently held by many psychologists, that ‘semantic memory’ is represented in some abstract, modality-independent, ‘conceptual’ domain remote from the mechanisms of perception and of motor organization.” “The essential idea is that the same neural elements that are involved in coding the sensory attributes of a (possibly unknown) object presented to the eye or hand or ear make up the elements of the auto-associated activity-patterns that represent familiar object concepts in ‘semantic memory.’ This model is, in radical opposition to the view, apparently held by many psychologists, that ‘semantic memory’ is represented in some abstract, modality-independent, ‘conceptual’ domain remote from the mechanisms of perception and of motor organization.” (p. 53)

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