Understanding the diversity and consistency of neural codes for human semantic representations

Abstract

What causes patterns of functional specialization in the human brain? Are such responses built into our genetic inheritance, or do they arise through learning and experience with environmental structure? The nature and extent of diversity in human cognition hinges upon answers to these questions. I will discuss new work suggesting that the functional profiles of different cortical regions are jointly constrained by their long-range anatomical connectivity and by learning and experience. At a coarse scale this arrangement produces homologies across individuals with little effect of experience, but at a finer scale, substantial individual variability can be observed. I will support these arguments with reference to new brain imaging, computational modeling, and patient studies of semantic memory—the form of memory that supports knowledge about the meanings of words and objects. The convergence of methods suggests a new account of semantic representation that reconciles long-standing theoretical disputes.