University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
Cogn Neuropsychol. 2003 May 1;20(3):525-40. doi: 10.1080/02643290244000257.
Is our knowledge about the appearance of objects more closely related to verbal thought or to perception? In a behavioural study using a property verification task, Kosslyn (1976) reported that there are both amodal and perceptual representations of concepts, but that amodal representations may be more easily accessed. However, Solomon (1997) argued that due to the nature of Kosslyn's stimuli, subjects may be able to bypass semantics entirely and perform this task using differences in the strength of association between words in true trials (e.g., cat-whiskers) and those in false trials (e.g., mouse-stinger). Solomon found no evidence for amodal representations when the task materials were altered to include associated false trials (e.g., cat-litter), which require semantic processing, as opposed to associative strategies. In the current study, we used fMRI to examine the response of regions of visual association cortex while subjects performed a property verification task with either associated or unassociated false trials. We found reliable activity across subjects within the left fusiform gyrus when true trials were intermixed with associated false trials but not when true trials were intermixed with unassociated false trials. Our data support the idea that conceptual knowledge is organised visually and that it is grounded in the perceptual system.
我们对物体外观的认识与言语思维更密切相关，还是与感知更密切相关？在一项使用属性验证任务的行为研究中，Kosslyn（1976）报告说，概念既有非模态的也有感知的表示，但非模态的表示可能更容易访问。然而，所罗门（1997）认为，由于 Kosslyn 刺激的性质，受试者可能能够完全绕过语义，并使用真试验（例如，猫胡须）和假试验（例如，鼠标刺）中单词之间关联强度的差异来执行此任务。当任务材料被改变为包括相关的假试验（例如，猫砂）时，所罗门发现没有模态表示的证据，这需要语义处理，而不是联想策略。在目前的研究中，我们使用 fMRI 检查了受试者在进行属性验证任务时视觉联想皮层区域的反应，该任务既有相关的假试验，也有不相关的假试验。当真试验与相关的假试验混合时，我们发现左梭状回内的可靠活动，而当真试验与不相关的假试验混合时，则没有。我们的数据支持这样一种观点，即概念知识是视觉组织的，它是基于感知系统的。
