The mental lexicon is a complex cognitive system representing information about the words/concepts that one knows. Decades of psychological experiments have shown that conceptual associations across multiple, interactive cognitive levels can greatly influence word acquisition, storage, and processing. How can semantic, phonological, syntactic, and other types of conceptual associations be mapped within a coherent mathematical framework to study how the mental lexicon works? We here review cognitive multilayer networks as a promising quantitative and interpretative framework for investigating the mental lexicon. Cognitive multilayer networks can map multiple types of information at once, thus capturing how different layers of associations might co-exist within the mental lexicon and influence cognitive processing. This review starts with a gentle introduction to the structure and formalism of multilayer networks. We then discuss quantitative mechanisms of psychological phenomena that could not be observed in single-layer networks and were only unveiled by combining multiple layers of the lexicon: (i) multiplex viability highlights language kernels and facilitative effects of knowledge processing in healthy and clinical populations; (ii) multilayer community detection enables contextual meaning reconstruction depending on psycholinguistic features; (iii) layer analysis can mediate latent interactions of mediation, suppression and facilitation for lexical access. By outlining novel quantitative perspectives where multilayer networks can shed light on cognitive knowledge representations, also in next-generation brain/mind models, we discuss key limitations and promising directions for cutting-edge future research.
翻译:心理词汇系统是一个复杂的认知系统,它代表着人们所知道的字词/概念的信息。 几十年的心理实验已经表明,多种互动认知层面的概念协会可以极大地影响获取、储存和处理字词。 如何在一个连贯的数学框架内绘制语义、声学、合成和其他类型的概念协会? 我们在这里审查认知多层网络,将其作为调查精神词汇的有希望的量化和解释框架。 认知多层网络可以同时绘制多种类型的信息,从而捕捉不同层次的协会如何在心理词汇中共存并影响认知处理。 本次审查首先可以温和地介绍多层网络的结构和形式主义。 然后我们讨论在单层网络中无法观察到的心理现象的数量机制,而只是通过将多种层次的词汇系统结合起来来揭开来:(一) 多x可行性语库突出模型和知识处理在健康和临床人群中的便利效应。 (二) 多层社区探测能够根据心理语言分类特征进行背景的重建并影响认知处理。