FIGURE 3.

A schematic representation of how the (much simplified) concept of a banana as an edible food with its distinct color and shape could be represented in the “hub-and-spoke” framework (Patterson et al., 2007; Lambon Ralph and Patterson, 2008). In this model, various perceptually based attributes are coded in their respective modality-specific regions (spokes) for perception and action (i.e., color: V4; shape: lateral occipital cortex, LOC; associated action of biting: motor-related regions lying along the precentral gyrus; linguistic label: superior temporal sulcus, STS). There may be interconnections among these regions, as indexed by gray thin lines. Crucially, these attributes are connected to (shown as thick maroon lines), and communicate through, an amodal (or supramodal) “hub” in the (possibly bilateral) anterior temporal lobes (ATLs). At the hub stage, different sources of sensory and motoric features coalesce to form abstract meaning. Note that this is a simplified representation of the typically intricate connections of a semantic network.