University of Twente Student Theses
The relation between active word categorization and semantic brain activation
Elsasser, P.L. (2022) The relation between active word categorization and semantic brain activation.
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| Abstract: | The semantic system makes up an integral part of how we perceive and interact with the world, yet its structure and location in the brain are not clear. Recently, a semantic map of brain activation was presented, based on fMRI (Huth et al., 2016). In the map, the brain is divided into voxels, which are activated by different concepts and semantic categories. This thesis investigates how brain activation and categorization in this brain map relate to active word categorization. Data of 12 previous card sorting studies that looked into this connection were merged and analysed, to investigate the similarity between concept relations found in the brain map and those obtained with active word categorization. The results showed that active word categorization relates to the categories found in the semantic brain map, and also showed a link to within-voxel relations in the map. To confirm these results, a new card sorting study was performed. This study also investigated a possible geometrical structure of semantic space. In the new card sorting study, concept bridges between voxels were analysed based on the possible geometrical structure between concepts. Overall, the results connect to the hub-and-spoke model for semantic memory. Keywords: semantic cognition, categorization, brain activation, voxel, card sorting, hub-and-spoke model, conceptual space, concept bridge |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Programme: | Psychology MSc (66604) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/90693 |
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