CiteULike: briordan's semantic-features

Evaluating the contribution of intra-lingustic and extra-linguistic data to the structure of human semantic representations

Mark Andrews — 2008-08-06T20:22:00-00:00

(2007), pp. 767-772.

The role of attributional and distributional information in semantic representation

Mark Andrews — 2008-08-06T20:18:04-00:00

(2005), pp. 127-132.

Semantics in Psychology

AJ Sanford — 2008-08-06T18:56:44-00:00

(2006), pp. 152-158.

Distributional statistics and thematic role relationships

Jon Willits — 2008-07-17T18:09:30-00:00

(2007), pp. 707-712.

Comparing Semantic Space Models Using Child-Directed Speech

Brian Riordan — 2008-07-06T00:30:17-00:00

(2007)

An attractor model of lexical conceptual processing: simulating semantic priming

George Cree — 2008-06-29T00:21:50-00:00

Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal, Vol. 23, No. 3. (1999), pp. 371-414.

An attractor network was trained to compute from word form to semantic representations that were based on subject-generated features. The model was driven largely by higher-order semantic structure. The network simulated two recent experiments that employed items included in its training set (McRae and Boisvert, 1998). In Simulation 1, short stimulus onset asynchrony priming was demonstrated for semantically similar items. Simulation 2 reproduced subtle effects obtained by varying degree of similarity. Two predictions from the model were then tested on human subjects. In Simulation 3 and Experiment 1, the items from Simulation 1 were reversed, and both the network and subjects showed minimally different priming effects in the two directions. In Experiment 2, consistent with attractor networks but contrary to a key aspect of hierarchical spreading activation accounts priming was determined by featural similarity rather than shared superordinate category. It is concluded that semantic-similarity priming is due to featural overlap that is a natural consequence of distributed representations of word meaning.

The similarity-in-topography principle: Reconciling theories of conceptual deficits

Kyle Simmons — 2008-06-09T23:06:57-00:00

Cognitive Neuropsychology, Vol. 20, No. 3. (2003), pp. 451-486.

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.

Are there lexicons?

Max Coltheart — 2008-06-09T23:03:04-00:00

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, Vol. 57, No. 7. (2004), pp. 1153-1171.

Many models of the processing of printed or spoken words or objects or faces propose that systems of local representations of the forms of such stimulilexiconsexist. This is denied by partisans of the distributed-representation connectionist approach to cognitive modelling. An experimental paradigm of key theoretical importance here is lexical decision and its analogue in the domain of objects, object decision. How does each theoretical camp account for our ability to perform these two tasks? The localists say that the tasks are done by matching or failing to match a stimulus to a local representation in a lexicon. Advocates of distributed representations often do not seek to explain these two tasks; however, when they do, they propose that patterns of activation evoked in a semantic system can be used to discriminate between words and nonwords, or between real objects and false objects. Therefore the distributed-representation account of lexical and object decision tasks predicts that performance on these tasks can never be normal in patients with an impaired semantic system, nor in patients who cannot access semantics normally from the stimulus domain being tested. However, numerous such patients have been reported in the literature, indicating that semantic access is not needed for normal performance on these tasks. Such results support the localist form of modelling rather than the distributed-representation approach.

The Big Book of Concepts

Gregory Murphy — 2008-06-09T22:56:41-00:00

(2002)

Knowledge Representation

Arthur Markman — 2008-06-09T22:55:03-00:00

(1999)

Semantic memory

Beth Ober — 2008-06-09T22:45:57-00:00

(2006), pp. 403-453.

How features create knowledge of kinds

Shohei Hidaka — 2008-06-06T18:28:40-00:00

(2008)

Predicting Human Brain Activity Associated with the Meanings of Nouns

Tom Mitchell — 2008-05-29T22:12:26-00:00

Science, Vol. 320, No. 5880. (30 May 2008), pp. 1191-1195.

The question of how the human brain represents conceptual knowledge has been debated in many scientific fields. Brain imaging studies have shown that different spatial patterns of neural activation are associated with thinking about different semantic categories of pictures and words (for example, tools, buildings, and animals). We present a computational model that predicts the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) neural activation associated with words for which fMRI data are not yet available. This model is trained with a combination of data from a trillion-word text corpus and observed fMRI data associated with viewing several dozen concrete nouns. Once trained, the model predicts fMRI activation for thousands of other concrete nouns in the text corpus, with highly significant accuracies over the 60 nouns for which we currently have fMRI data. 10.1126/science.1152876

Neuroanatomical distribution of five semantic components of verbs: Evidence from fMRI

David Kemmerer — 2008-05-29T15:10:21-00:00

Brain and Language, Vol. In Press, Corrected Proof

The Simulation Framework, also known as the Embodied Cognition Framework, maintains that conceptual knowledge is grounded in sensorimotor systems. To test several predictions that this theory makes about the neural substrates of verb meanings, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan subjects' brains while they made semantic judgments involving five classes of verbs--specifically, Running verbs (e.g., run, jog, walk), Speaking verbs (e.g., shout, mumble, whisper), Hitting verbs (e.g., hit, poke, jab), Cutting verbs (e.g., cut, slice, hack), and Change of State verbs (e.g., shatter, smash, crack). These classes were selected because they vary with respect to the presence or absence of five distinct semantic components--specifically, ACTION, MOTION, CONTACT, CHANGE OF STATE, and TOOL USE. Based on the Simulation Framework, we hypothesized that the ACTION component depends on the primary motor and premotor cortices, that the MOTION component depends on the posterolateral temporal cortex, that the CONTACT component depends on the intraparietal sulcus and inferior parietal lobule, that the CHANGE OF STATE component depends on the ventral temporal cortex, and that the TOOL USE component depends on a distributed network of temporal, parietal, and frontal regions. Virtually all of the predictions were confirmed. Taken together, these findings support the Simulation Framework and extend our understanding of the neuroanatomical distribution of different aspects of verb meaning.

Hemodynamic response to featural changes in the occipital and inferior temporal cortex in infants: a preliminary methodological exploration

Wilcox — 2008-05-11T10:12:08-00:00

Developmental Science, Vol. 11, No. 3. (May 2008), pp. 361-370.

Clarifying the nature of the distinctiveness by domain interaction in conceptual structure: Comment on Cree, McNorgan, and McRae (2006)

Kirsten Taylor — 2008-05-12T01:51:32-00:00

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Vol. 34, No. 3. (May 2008), pp. 719-725.

Speaker-generated and corpus-generated concept features

Massimo Poesio — 2008-04-20T01:20:03-00:00

(2007)

A comparison of feature norms and WordNet

Eduard Barbu — 2008-04-20T01:10:07-00:00

(2008)

Towards a computational model of gradience in word sense

Katrin Erk — 2008-04-09T17:40:52-00:00

Language and simulation in conceptual processing

Lawrence Barsalou — 2008-04-03T15:06:56-00:00

(in press)

The Role of Semantic Features in Verb Processing

Isabelle Bonnotte — 2008-03-23T00:30:21-00:00

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol. 37, No. 3. (6 May 2008), pp. 199-217.

Abstract The present study examined the general hypothesis that, as for nouns, stable representations of semantic knowledge relative to situations expressed by verbs are available and accessible in long term memory in normal people. Regular associations between verbs and past tenses in French adults allowed to abstract two superordinate semantic features in the representation of verb meaning: durativity and resultativity. A pilot study was designed to select appropriate items according to these features: durative, non-resultative verbs and non-durative, resultative verbs. An experimental study was then conducted to assess semantic priming in French adults with two visual semantic-decision tasks at a 200- and 100-ms SOA. In the durativity decision task, participants had to decide if the target referred to a durable or non-durable situation. In the resultativity decision task, they had to decide if it referred to a situation with a directly observable outcome or without any clear external outcome. Targets were preceded by similar, opposite, and neutral primes. Results showed that semantic priming can tap verb meaning at a 200- and 100-ms SOA, with the restriction that only the positive value of each feature benefited from priming, that is the durative and resultative values. Moreover, processing of durativity and resultativity is far from comparable since facilitation was shown on the former with similar and opposite priming, whereas it was shown on the latter only with similar priming. Overall, these findings support Le Ny’s (in: Saint-Dizier, Viegas (eds) Computational lexical semantics, 1995; Cahier de Recherche Linguistique LanDisCo 12:85–100, 1998; Comment l’esprit produit du sens, 2005) general hypothesis that classificatory properties of verbs could be interpreted as semantic features and the view that semantic priming can tap verb meaning, as noun meaning.

Semantic feature production norms for a large set of objects and events

David Vinson — 2008-02-26T02:22:00-00:00

Behavior Research Methods, Vol. 40, No. 1. (February 2008), pp. 183-190.

Is there preferential attachment in the growth of early semantic noun networks?

Thomas Hills — 2008-02-08T21:13:59-00:00

(submitted)

A model of grounded language acquisition: Sensorimotor features improve lexical and grammatical learning

Steve Howell — 2005-06-21T09:18:01-00:00

Journal of Memory and Language, Vol. 53, No. 2. (August 2005), pp. 258-276.

It is generally accepted that children have sensorimotor mental representations for concepts even before they learn the words for those concepts. We argue that these prelinguistic and embodied concepts direct and ground word learning, such that early concepts provide scaffolding by which later word learning, and even grammar learning, is enabled and facilitated. We gathered numerical ratings of the sensorimotor features of many early words (352 nouns, 90 verbs) using adult human participants. We analyzed the ratings to demonstrate their ability to capture the embodied meaning of the underlying concepts. Then using a simulation experiment we demonstrated that with language corpora of sufficient complexity, neural network (SRN) models with sensorimotor features perform significantly better than models without features, as evidenced by their ability to perform word prediction, an aspect of grammar. We also discuss the possibility of indirect acquisition of grounded meaning through "propagation of grounding" for novel words in these networks.

Names, concepts, features and the living/nonliving things dissociation

Frederico Marques — 2008-02-06T19:45:20-00:00

Cognition, Vol. 85, No. 3. (October 2002), pp. 251-275.

The present paper evaluates different hypotheses for explaining the living/nonliving things dissociation phenomenon in terms of feature type, considering the role of this dimension in the organization of conceptual semantic representations and in the activation of name representations. For this purpose we used Sloman and associates' (Memory and Cognition 27(3) (1999) 526; Cognitive Science 22(2) (1998) 189) name centrality and conceptual centrality tasks and asked subjects to judge functional and perceptual/visual features of living and nonliving items. Conceptual centrality results are more in accordance with a "single feature-domain connection hypothesis" where visual features are more important than functional features for the representation of living things and no feature type advantage is found for nonliving things. Name centrality results show that functional features are more important than sensory/visual features overall, a result that is not predicted by any of the hypotheses considered. The fact that the two judgments diverge emphasizes their importance for evaluating the role of feature type in the living/nonliving dissociation. Implications for explaining this phenomenon are also discussed.

The breakdown of semantic knowledge: Insights from a statistical model of meaning representation

David Vinson — 2008-02-06T19:17:29-00:00

Brain and Language, Vol. 86, No. 3. (September 2003), pp. 347-365.

Investigations of patients with semantic category-specific deficits have revealed a wide range of performance and variability in categories that are impaired or spared; this variability presents a challenge to accounts of category specificity. Accounts based only on impairment to semantic features of a particular type (e.g., visual), as well as accounts based only on featural properties (e.g., feature intercorrelations), are insufficient to explain the variability of patients' performance. A first goal of the paper is to discuss how a hybrid account incorporating both a level of organization according to feature types (a level of nonlinguistic conceptual representations) and a level of organization dictated by featural properties may provide a more comprehensive account of the cases reported in the literature. The second and most novel goal of the study reported here is to derive from our hybrid account a series of novel predictions concerning the representation and impairment of a different domain of knowledge: knowledge of actions and events, a domain of knowledge that has received remarkably little attention to date.

Activating event knowledge

Hare — 2007-12-29T19:52:30-00:00

??? (submitted)

Where do you know what you know? The representation of semantic knowledge in the human brain

Karalyn Patterson — 2007-11-21T09:04:27-00:00

Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Vol. 8, No. 12., pp. 976-987.

The general/specific breakdown of semantic memory and the nature of superordinate knowledge: Insights from superordinate and basic-level feature norms

Frederico Marques — 2007-12-27T12:44:56-00:00

Cognitive Neuropsychology, Vol. 24, No. 8. (2007), pp. 879-903.

The deterioration of semantic memory usually proceeds from more specific to more general superordinate categories, although rarer cases of superordinate knowledge impairment have also been reported. The nature of superordinate knowledge and the explanation of these two semantic impairments were evaluated from the analysis of superordinate and basic-level feature norms. The results show that, in comparison to basic-level concepts, superordinate concepts are not generally less informative and have similar feature distinctiveness and proportion of individual sensory features, but their features are less shared by their members. Results are in accord with explanations based on feature connection weights and/or concept confusability for the superordinate advantage cases. Results especially support an explanation for superordinate impairments in terms of higher semantic control requirements as related to features being less shared between concept members. Implications for patients with semantic impairments are also discussed.

On the Myth of Automatic Semantic Activation in Reading

Jennifer Stolz — 2007-12-16T16:56:20-00:00

Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 8, No. 2. (1999), pp. 61-65.

Visual word recognition is widely considered to be automatic in the sense that activation of meaning occurs both in the absence of intent and despite the reader's intent to not read the word. New evidence from the semantic priming paradigm and the Stroop paradigm undermines this view. Semantic processing depends strongly on attentional control over how activation is distributed across different levels of representation.

Latent structure in measures of associative, semantic, and thematic knowledge

William Maki — 2007-12-16T15:10:30-00:00

Behavior Research Methods, Vol. 15, No. 3. (June 2008), pp. 598-603.

Semantic packing as a core mechanism of category cohesiveness, fast mapping, and basic level categories

Shohei Hidaka — 2007-12-11T02:13:29-00:00

(2006), pp. 1500-1505.

Associative judgments block semantic processing

Erin Buchanan — 2007-11-20T19:26:24-00:00

An efficient method for estimating semantic similarity based on feature overlap: Reliability and validity of semantic feature ratings

Maki — 2006-06-04T13:32:36-00:00

Behavior Research Methods, Vol. 38, No. 1. (February 2006), pp. 153-157.

How bilinguals solve the naming problem

Eef Ameel — 2007-03-01T02:56:58-00:00

Journal of Memory and Language, Vol. 53, No. 1. (July 2005), pp. 60-80.

If different languages map words onto referents in different ways, bilinguals must either (a) learn and maintain separate mappings for their two languages or (b) merge them and not be fully native-like in either. We replicated and extended past findings of cross-linguistic differences in word-to-referent mappings for common household objects using Belgian monolingual speakers of Dutch and French. We then examined word-to-referent mappings in Dutch-French bilinguals by comparing the way they named in their two languages. We found that the French and Dutch bilingual naming patterns converged on a common naming pattern, with only minor deviations. Through the mutual influence of the two languages, the category boundaries in each language move towards one another and hence diverge from the boundaries used by the native speakers of either language. Implications for the organization of the bilingual lexicon are discussed.

Beyond common features: The role of roles in determining similarity

Matt Jones — 2007-02-21T20:21:12-00:00

Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 55, No. 3. (November 2007), pp. 196-231.

Historically, accounts of object representation and perceived similarity have focused on intrinsic features. Although more recent accounts have explored how objects, scenes, and situations containing common relational structures come to be perceived as similar, less is known about how the perceived similarity of parts or objects embedded within these relational systems is affected. The current studies test the hypothesis that objects situated in common relational systems come to be perceived as more similar. Similarity increases most for objects playing the same role within a relation (e.g., predator), but also increases for objects playing different roles within the same relation (e.g., the predator or prey role in the hunts relation) regardless of whether the objects participate in the same instance of the relation. This pattern of results can be captured by extending existing models that extract meaning from text corpora so that they are sensitive to the verb-specific thematic roles that objects fill. Alternative explanations based on analogical and inferential processes are also considered, as well as the implications of the current findings to research in language processing, decision making, and category learning.

Concept empiricism: A methodological critique

Edouard Machery — 2006-07-24T10:20:38-00:00

Cognition, Vol. 104, No. 1. (July 2007), pp. 19-46.

Thanks to Barsalou's, Damasio's, Glenberg's, Prinz' and others' work, neo-empiricism is gaining a deserved recognition in the psychology and philosophy of concepts. I argue, however, that neo-empiricists have underestimated the difficulty of providing evidence against the amodal approach to concepts and higher cognition. I highlight three key problems: the difficulty of sorting out amodal predictions from neo-empiricist predictions, the difficulty of finding experimental tasks that are not best solved by imagery and the difficulty of generalizing findings concerning a given cognitive process in a given context to other cognitive processes or other contexts. Finally, solutions to these three problems are considered.

Word meaning and the control of eye fixation: semantic competitor effects and the visual world paradigm

Falk Huettig — 2005-04-28T13:55:32-00:00

Cognition, Vol. 96, No. 1. (May 2005), pp. B23-B32.

When participants are presented simultaneously with spoken language and a visual display depicting objects to which that language refers, participants spontaneously fixate the visual referents of the words being heard [Cooper, R. M. (1974). The control of eye fixation by the meaning of spoken language: A new methodology for the real-time investigation of speech perception, memory, and language processing. Cognitive Psychology, 6(1), 84-107; Tanenhaus, M. K., Spivey-Knowlton, M. J., Eberhard, K. M., & Sedivy, J. C. (1995). Integration of visual and linguistic information in spoken language comprehension. Science, 268(5217), 1632-1634]. We demonstrate here that such spontaneous fixation can be driven by partial semantic overlap between a word and a visual object. Participants heard the word 'piano' when (a) a piano was depicted amongst unrelated distractors; (b) a trumpet was depicted amongst those same distractors; and (c), both the piano and trumpet were depicted. The probability of fixating the piano and the trumpet in the first two conditions rose as the word 'piano' unfolded. In the final condition, only fixations to the piano rose, although the trumpet was fixated more than the distractors. We conclude that eye movements are driven by the degree of match, along various dimensions that go beyond simple visual form, between a word and the mental representations of objects in the concurrent visual field.

The role of theories in conceptual coherence

Gregory Murphy — 2007-10-25T00:47:42-00:00

Psychological Review, Vol. 92 (1985), pp. 289-316.

Abstract and concrete concepts have structurally different representational frameworks

Sebastian Crutch — 2005-02-18T19:25:28-00:00

Brain, Vol. 128, No. 3. (March 2005), pp. 615-627.

A Nonparametric Bayesian Method for Inferring Features From Similarity Judgments

Daniel Navarro — 2007-10-21T02:18:15-00:00

(2007)

The additive clustering model is widely used to infer the features of a set of stimuli from their similarities, on the assumption that similarity is a weighted linear function of common features. This paper develops a fully Bayesian formulation of the additive clustering model, using methods from nonparametric Bayesian statistics to allow the number of features to vary. We use this to explore several approaches to parameter estimation, showing that the nonparametric Bayesian approach provides a straightforward way to obtain estimates of both the number of features used in producing similarity judgments and their importance.

On the nature and scope of featural representations of word meaning

K Mcrae — 2007-10-20T17:46:08-00:00

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 126, No. 2. (1997), pp. 99-130.

Behavioral experiments and a connectionist model were used to explore the use of featural representations in the computation of word meaning. The research focused on the role of correlations among features, and differences between speeded and untimed tasks with respect to the use of featural information. The results indicate that featural representations are used in the initial computation of word meaning (as in an attractor network), patterns of feature correlations differ between artifacts and living things, and the degree to which features are intercorrelated plays an important role in the organization of semantic memory. The studies also suggest that it may be possible to predict semantic priming effects from independently motivated featural theories of semantic relatedness. Implications for related behavioral phenomena such as the semantic impairments associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) are discussed.

Analyzing the factors underlying the structure and computation of the meaning of chipmunk, cherry, chisel, cheese, and cello (and many other such concrete nouns)

George Cree — 2007-10-20T17:22:33-00:00

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 132, No. 2. (2003), 163-201.

Seven trends regarding the categories that tend to be impaired/preserved in category-specific semantic deficits were identified. The authors hypothesized that these trends arise despite the multiple sources of variation in patient testing because numerous factors that structure semantic memory probabilistically converge to make some categories of knowledge more susceptible to damage than others. Analysis of semantic feature norms and corpus data for 541 concepts revealed that differences in the distribution of knowledge types across categories are sufficient to explain 6 of the trends and are necessary to explain loss of knowledge about nonliving things. Feature informativeness, concept confusability, visual complexity, familiarity, and name frequency contributed to this patterning and provide insight into why knowledge about living things is most often impaired.

Semantic feature production norms for a large set of living and nonliving things

Ken Mcrae — 2006-05-18T14:14:36-00:00

Behavior Research Methods, Vol. 37, No. 4. (November 2005), pp. 547-559.

Automatic Semantic Similarity Priming

Ken Mcrae — 2007-09-29T02:08:50-00:00

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Vol. 24, No. 3. (1998), pp. 558-572.

Words similar in meaning but not associated may not automatically prime one another (J. R. Shelton & R. C. Martin, 1992). This contradicts a central prediction of distributed models, necessitates questionable revisions of spreading activation and compound cue theories, and has led to the claim that automatic priming does not tap word meaning. Low item similarity was hypothesized to be the primary factor responsible for the previous null effects. Experiment 1 obtained priming with highly similar items using single and paired presentation with lexical and semantic decision tasks. Experiment 2 replicated Shelton and Martin to show that the results of Experiment 1 were not due to methodological factors. Experiment 3 showed priming for highly similar items for short and long SOAs, but for less similar items for a long SOA only. Thus, semantic similarity is an important aspect of semantic relatedness, and automatic priming does tap word meaning.

Representing the meanings of object and action words: The featural and unitary semantic space hypothesis

Gabriella Vigliocco — 2005-11-12T14:28:24-00:00

Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 48, No. 4. (June 2004), pp. 422-488.

This paper presents the Featural and Unitary Semantic Space (FUSS) hypothesis of the meanings of object and action words. The hypothesis, implemented in a statistical model, is based on the following assumptions: First, it is assumed that the meanings of words are grounded in conceptual featural representations, some of which are organized according to modality. Second, it is assumed that conceptual featural representations are bound into lexico-semantic representations that provide an interface between conceptual knowledge and other linguistic information (syntax and phonology). Finally, the FUSS model employs the same principles and tools for objects and actions, modeling both domains in a single semantic space. We assess the plausibility of the model by showing that it can capture generalizations presented in the literature, in particular those related to category-related deficits, and show that it can predict semantic effects in behavioral experiments for object and action words better than other models such as Latent Semantic Analysis (Landauer & Dumais, 1997) and similarity metrics derived from Wordnet ( Miller & Fellbaum, 1991).