SEMANTIC MEMORY: CHARACTERISTICS, FUNCTIONS AND EXAMPLES - NEUROPSYCHOLOGY - 2025

The semantic memory is a type of declarative memory that allows people to generate general knowledge about the world and language. It is a type of memory that makes the acquisition and retention of general knowledge possible.

Within this type of memory is housed all the information that is possessed about facts, concepts and language. Examples of semantic memory are remembering what a cat is, remembering dates of important events, or remembering names of relatives.

The term semantic memory refers to the memory of meanings, understandings and other conceptual knowledge that are not related to concrete experiences. It is an organized knowledge that people have about words, other verbal symbols and their meaning.

Characteristics of semantic memory

Semantic memory is considered as the conscious collection of information about facts and general knowledge about the world; it constitutes a memory that is independent of context and personal relevance.

Along with episodic memory, semantic memory forms the category of declarative memory, one of the two main divisions of memory. In counterpart to declarative memory is procedural memory or implicit memory.

Importance

Semantic memory is a type of memory vital to the cognitive functioning of human beings. This type of knowledge allows, for example, to know that a closet is a piece of furniture, a T-shirt an article of clothing or a bicycle a means of transport.

To form such knowledge, it is not necessary to recall a direct experience related to them (episodic memory), but rather it is necessary to elaborate a cognitive content that is capable of giving meaning to the person's environment (semantic memory).

Scientific evidence

The existence of semantic memory is not based on simple theory or hypothesis, but has scientific evidence. Likewise, today there is enough knowledge to consider semantic memory as a type of knowledge different from episodic memory.

The strongest arguments in favor of episodic memory and semantic memory being two different memories comes from the cases of subjects with amnesia.

Amnesia suggests the existence of two different types of memory because the deterioration of episodic memory is greater than that of semantic memory. In other words, subjects with amnesia remember specific events or situations worse than elements or global meanings.

Other evidence about the existence of semantic memory is the recent studies carried out with brain images of cognitively healthy subjects.

The brain regions that are activated during the coding and retrieval of material are different when the task carried out includes elements belonging to episodic memory than when it includes elements related to semantic memory.

Examples of semantic memory

Some examples of semantic memory are:

-Know how to use a pen.

-Know that fish live in water.

-Remember the name of the family members.

-Remember what a car / automobile is and how it works.

-Know what a dog is.

-Recognize the name of the colors

-Remember that Paris is the capital of France.

-Remember when the arrival on the Moon was.

Parts of the brain involved

From cognitive neuroscience, semantic memory is an element that generates a certain controversy. Specifically, there are currently two main views about the brain structures involved.

Many authors state that like episodic memory, semantic memory is carried out through the intervention of the medial temporal lobes and the hippocampal formation.

Temporal lobe

According to this point of view, the hippocampal formation would be the brain structure in charge of encoding memories and the cerebral cortex would be the region where they are stored once the encoding phase has been completed.

Hippocampus

Despite the fact that the scientific evidence about this hypothesis is not conclusive, recently there has been evidence about its veracity.

Specifically, it has been possible to determine the cerebral involvement of semantic memory through the distinction of the three components of the hippocampal formation. This formation includes the hippocampus itself, the entorhinal cortex, and the perrinial cortex.

Subjects with amnesia who present a damaged hippocampus, but maintain relatively preserved paarahipocampal cortex, are able to show some degree of intact semantic memory, despite presenting a total loss of episodic memory.

From the other point of view, it is argued that the hippocampus only participates in episodic memory and spatial cognition, so semantic memory takes place in other regions of the brain.

In this sense, it is postulated that the temporal neocortex, the auditory cortex, the visual cortex and the bilateral temporal pole could be the brain structures involved. However, the evidence provided in this regard is limited.

Features

-Formation of concepts and categories

Semantic memory implies the appearance of a main element: concepts. Concepts are the main units of thought that, according to various authors, constitute the semantic values ​​of sentences.

More specifically, concepts are the mental representations of thought, so they are constructs endowed with semantic properties.

The categories are the representations of the concrete copies of a concept existing in memory. They are the most important elements of thought. Concepts and categories allow you to mentally organize objects into classes and classifications.

These categories of semantic memory make the cognitive system of human beings inexpensive. That is, the mind uses the process of categorization to order the different objects in the environment in an organized way.

The formation of categories is one of the main activities performed by semantic memory. The categories are established through learning carried out during the first years of life.

When the category is developed, it is stored in memory and is updated as new information is acquired. For example, when a child generates the category "toy", he incorporates all the toys that he learns.

-Make representations of the information

Semantic memory is characterized by developing a propositional representation of the information. These types of representations constitute the most appropriate format to represent any type of information from the cognitive system of human beings.

A proposition is something more abstract than the words of a language that form it. That is, a representation that is made up of discrete symbols that are placed in place of the entities they represent.

Thus, propositions are the most versatile representational concepts since they are capable of expressing any type of representation.

-Create semantic networks

Each word that makes up the mental lexicon is a lexical entry. The information contained in each entry refers to how it should be pronounced, its meaning, and how it should be written.

Words are represented in semantic memory as independent units. However, they are related to each other through prepositions.

-Establish partnerships

Association refers to a relationship established between two different units of information. It is a fundamental concept in psychology, and associations of mental representations are essential for models of memory and cognition.

Associated disorders

Subjects with semantic dementia often have trouble accessing the meaning of concepts.

There is some evidence about a region of the brain that is closely related to the construction and implementation of actions that lead to the achievement of objectives: the prefrontal cortex.

Patients with lesions in this brain structure may present significant difficulties in accessing the information contained in the diagrams.

Due to the complexity of semantic memory disorders, two categories have been proposed:

1. Semantic impairments of specific categories: they affect the perceptual and functional characteristics, the topographic organization and the informativeness.
2. Impairment in specific sensory modalities: these impairments are divided into subsystems based on the sensory modality of the incoming information (visual, auditory, verbal, perceptual or functional).

References

1. Bejar, II, Chaffin, R. and Embretson, S. (1991). A taxonomy of semantic relations. In II Bejar, R. Caffin and S. Embretson (Eds.) Cognitive and psychometric analysis of analogical problem solving (pp. 56-91). New York: Springer-Verlag.
2. Collins, AM and Loftus, EF (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review, 82, 407–428.
3. McClelland, JL and Rumelhart, DE (1985). Distributed memory and the representation of general and specific information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 114, 159–188.
4. Smith, EE, Shoben, EJ and Rips, LJ (May 1974) «Structure and process in semantic memory: A featural model for semantic decisions.
5. Rips, LJ, Shoben, EJ and Smith, EE (1973). Semantic Distance and the verification of semantic relations. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14, 665-681.
6. Tulving, E. (1972). Episodic and semantic memory. In E. Tulving and W. Donaldson (Eds.) Organization of memory (pp. 381–403). New York: Academic Press.