DOMAIN-SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS IN THE BRAIN - THE ANIMATE-INANIMATE DISTINCTION

We claim that the animate and inanimate conceptual categories represen t evolutionarily adapted domain-specific knowledge systems that are su bserved by distinct neural mechanisms, thereby allowing for their sele ctive impairment in conditions of brain damage. On this view, (some of ) the category-specific deficits that have recently been reported in t he cognitive neuropsychological literature-for example, the selective damage or sparing of knowledge about animals-are truly categorical eff ects. Here,we articulate and defend this thesis against the dominant, reductionist theory of category-specific deficits, which holds that th e categorical nature of the deficits is the result of selective damage to noncategorically organized visual or functional semantic subsystem s. On the latter view, the sensory/functional dimension provides the f undamental organizing principle of the semantic system. Since, accordi ng to the latter theory, sensory and functional properties are differe ntially important in determining the meaning of the members of differe nt semantic categories, selective damage to the visual or the function al semantic subsystem will result in a category-like deficit. A review of the literature and the results of a new case of category-specific deficit will show that the domain-specific knowledge framework provide s a better account of category-specific deficits than the sensory/func tional dichotomy theory.