Chapter 14 - Situating Concepts

Summary

Although modern researchers have entertained many accounts of the conceptual system, the semantic memory view has dominated. This way of thinking about the conceptual system arises from Tulving's classic distinction between episodic and semantic memory. The subsections of this chapter introduce the constructs of reenactment, simulator, and simulation, respectively. According to this account, the conceptual system shares mechanisms with modality-specific systems, such that the conceptual system is not modular. As a consequence, conceptual representations are at least partially modal, not completely amodal. The chapter presents an analogy: conceptual representations are situated because perceptions are situated. It suggests that concepts are situated because of evolutionary convenience and computational efficacy. The chapter presents definitions for concepts, situations, and the relations between them. It presents the central construct of situated conceptualization.