Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2016 Aug;23(4):1015-27.
doi: 10.3758/s13423-015-0948-7.

Putting concepts into context

Eiling Yee  1   2 , Sharon L Thompson-Schill  3
Affiliations
Review

Putting concepts into context

Eiling Yee et al. Psychon Bull Rev. 2016 Aug.

Abstract

At first glance, conceptual representations (e.g., our internal notion of the object "lemon") seem static; we have the impression that there is something that the concept lemon "means" (a sour, yellow, football-shaped citrus fruit) and that this meaning does not vary. Research in semantic memory has traditionally taken this "static" perspective. Consequently, only effects demonstrated across a variety of contexts have typically been considered informative regarding the architecture of the semantic system. In this review, we take the opposite approach: We review instances of context-dependent conceptual activation at many different timescales-from long-term experience, to recent experience, to the current task goals, to the unfolding process of conceptual activation itself-and suggest that the pervasive effects of context across all of these timescales indicate that rather than being static, conceptual representations are constantly changing and are inextricably linked to their contexts.

Keywords: Embodied cognition; Semantic memory.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Allport DA. Distributed memory, modular subsystems and dysphasia. In: Newman SK, Epstein R, editors. Current Perspectives in Dysphasia. Churchill Livingstone; Edinburgh: 1985. pp. 207–244.
    1. Altmann GTM. The Ascent of Babel: An exploration of language, mind, and understanding. University Press; Oxford, England: 1997.
    1. Anderson SE, Spivey MJ. The enactment of language: Decades of interactions between linguistic and motor processes. Language and Cognition. 2009;1:87–111.
    1. Barclay JR, Bransford JD, Franks JJ, McCarrell NS, Nitsch KE. Comprehension and semantic flexibility. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 1974;13:471–481.
    1. Barsalou LW. Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral Brain Science. 1999;22:577660. - PubMed