Navigating Concepts in the Human Mind Unravels the Latent Geometry of Its Semantic Space

Barbara Benigni, Monica Dallabona, Elena Bravi, Stefano Merler, Manlio De Domenico and Hang-Hyun Jo

Complexity, 2021, vol. 2021, 1-13

Abstract: Mechanisms for retrieving basic knowledge in the human mind are still unknown. Exploration is usually represented by cognitive units, i.e., concepts, linked together by associative relationships forming semantic networks. However, understanding how humans navigate such networks remains elusive, because the underlying topology of concepts cannot be observed directly, and only functional representations are accessible. Here, we overcome those limitations and show that the hypothesis of an underlying, latent geometry characterizing the human mind is plausible. We characterize this geometry by means of adequate descriptors for exploring and navigating dynamics, demonstrating that they can capture the differences between healthy subjects and patients at different stages of dementia. Our results provide the first fundamental step to develop a new unifying conceptual and computational framework that can be used to support the assessment of neurodegenerative diseases from language and semantic memory retrieval tasks, as well as helping develop targeted nonpharmacological therapies to maintain residual cognitive capacity.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/complexity/2021/6398407.pdf (application/pdf)
http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/complexity/2021/6398407.xml (application/xml)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hin:complx:6398407

DOI: 10.1155/2021/6398407

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Complexity from Hindawi
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mohamed Abdelhakeem ().