Concrete versus abstract forms of social concept: an fMRI comparison of knowledge about people versus social terms.

Publisher: Royal Society Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 7503623 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1471-2970 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 09628436 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: London : Royal Society, 1934-

Concept Formation* ; Interpersonal Relations* ; Knowledge* ; Semantics* ; Visual Perception*; Temporal Lobe/*physiology; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging

The anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) play a key role in conceptual knowledge representation. The hub-and-spoke theory suggests that the contribution of the ATLs to semantic representation is (a) transmodal, i.e. integrating information from multiple sensorimotor and verbal modalities, and (b) pan-categorical, representing concepts from all categories. Another literature, however, suggests that this region's responses are modality- and category-selective; prominent examples include category selectivity for socially relevant concepts and face recognition. The predictions of each approach have never been directly compared. We used data from three studies to compare category-selective responses within the ATLs. Study 1 compared ATL responses to famous people versus another conceptual category (landmarks) from visual versus auditory inputs. Study 2 compared ATL responses to famous people from pictorial and written word inputs. Study 3 compared ATL responses to a different kind of socially relevant stimuli, namely abstract non-person-related words, in order to ascertain whether ATL subregions are engaged for social concepts more generally or only for person-related knowledge. Across all three studies a dominant bilateral ventral ATL cluster responded to all categories in all modalities. Anterior to this 'pan-category' transmodal region, a second cluster responded more weakly overall yet selectively for people, but did so equally for spoken names and faces (Study 1). A third region in the anterior superior temporal gyrus responded selectively to abstract socially relevant words (Study 3), but did not respond to concrete socially relevant words (i.e. written names; Study 2). These findings can be accommodated by the graded hub-and-spoke model of concept representation. On this view, the ventral ATL is the centre point of a bilateral ATL hub, which contributes to conceptual representation through transmodal distillation of information arising from multiple modality-specific association cortices. Partial specialization occurs across the graded ATL hub as a consequence of gradedly differential connectivity across the region.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.
(© 2018 The Authors.)

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MR/R023883/1 United Kingdom MRC_ Medical Research Council; MR/J004146/1 United Kingdom MRC_ Medical Research Council; United Kingdom BB_ Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council; MC_UU_00005/18 United Kingdom MRC_ Medical Research Council; MR/K026992/1 United Kingdom MRC_ Medical Research Council

Keywords: anterior temporal lobe; conceptual knowledge; face recognition; semantic cognition; social cognition

Date Created: 20180620 Date Completed: 20190429 Latest Revision: 20220806

20240829

PMC6015823

10.1098/rstb.2017.0136

29915004