Semantic Representations in the Blind

On the role of visual experience and culture in understanding and giving spatial descriptions: theories, empirical findings and possible applications-SD

The conference, held in Pisa on October 5-6 2012, was devoted to present the most recent advances on the study of semantic representations in congenitally blind people from the perspectives of linguistics, vision and cognitive neurosciences. The talks focused on two domains where the relationship between language, conceptual structure and senso-motory information is particularly relevant, i.e. concrete terms and spatial language. The conference brought together an international and interdisciplinary pool of experts facing the topic from several theoretical and methodological approaches. Furthermore, the results of the Italian PRIN project 2008 "Semantic representations in the language of the blind: linguistic and neurocognitive studies" were presented and discussed. The final panel discussed crucial aspects of the social life of the blind. The conference was co-organized by Giovanna Marotta (University of Pisa), Alessandro Lenci (University of Pisa) and Marco Baroni (University of Trento).

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Semantic Representations in the Blind