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Abstract:
Abstract: Results from brain-damaged patients have been used
to argue that semantic information for living and non-living things
is represented differently in the brain. If these categories
utilise different brain structures, category-specific effects
should also be observable in intact individuals. Alternatively, the
structural similarity of objects may explain category-specific
effects. This issue is investigated in the normal population.
Members of living categories are shown to be structurally more
similar to each other than members of non- living categories for
the Snodgrass and Vanderwart, 1980, picture set. It is hypothesised
that patients with object recognition problems are likely to find
living things particularly hard to distinguish because they are
highly similar. The effects of similarity and category (living
/non-living) on naming performance are investigated for sets of
stimuli where these two factors are controlled for independently.
No effects of category were found once further controls were made
and it is demonstrated that high levels of similarity can cause
naming difficulties for normals. These results are related to data
from brain-damaged patients and to theories of category-specific
organisation of brain structures. Snodgrass, J.G.& Vanderwart,
M. (1980). A standardised set of 260 pictures: Norms for name
agreement, image agreement, familiarity and visual complexity.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6,
174-215.
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