Abstract
We review the development and current status of theories of the organisation and representation of conceptual knowledge in the human brain. The currently known facts from optic aphasia, category-specific semantic deficits, and functional neuroimaging are consistent with a framework in which the first-order constraint on the organisation of conceptual knowledge is domain. Data from functional neuroimaging suggests additionally a framework characterised by both domain- and modality-specific constraints. Work in congenital disorders and in apraxia indicate that the content of conceptual knowledge is not exhausted by modality-specific input/output processes. It is concluded that future empirical and theoretical work on the organisation and representation of conceptual knowledge will profit from a reorientation of the problem from the organisation of distinct processing systems to the content of information represented internal to such systems.
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