The distinctiveness of form and function in category structure: A connectionist model

We present a new account of category structure derived from neuropsychological and developmental data. The account places theoretical emphasis on functional information. We claim i) the distinctiveness of functional features correlated with perceptual features varies across semantic domains. ii) the perceptual features representing specific functional mechanisms are strongly correlated with their function. The representational assumptions which follow from these claims make strong predictions about what types of semantic information is preserved in patients showing category-specific deficits following brain damage. We present a connectionist simulation which, when damaged, shows patterns of preservation of distinctive and shared functional and perceptual information varying across semantic domains. The data model both classic dissociations between knowledge for artefacts and for living things and recent neuropsychological evidence concerning the robustness of functional information

Conceptual structure and the structure of concepts: a distributed account of category-specific deficits

We present a new account of the fine-grained structure of semantic categories derived from neuropsychological, behavioral, and developmental data. The account places theoretical emphasis on the functions of the referents of concepts. We claim (i) that the distinctiveness of functional features correlated with perceptual features varies across semantic domains; and (ii) that category structure emerges from the complex interaction of these variables. The representational assumptions that follow from these claims make strong predictions about what types of semantic information are preserved in patients showing category-specific deficits following brain damage. These claims are illustrated with a connectionist simulation which, when damaged, shows patterns of preservation of distinctive and shared functional and perceptual information which varies across semantic domains. The data model both dissociations between knowledge for artifacts and for living things and recent neuropsychological evidence concerning the robustness of functional information in the representation of concepts. © 2000 Academic Pres