Semantic Network

What we are referring to as the 'semantic network' goes by many terms. Jean Piaget borrowed Hegel's term, calling it the schema in his theory of cognitive development known as constructivism .

Arthur Koestler called it a Meaning Matrix in his book The Art of Creation .

Karl Friston calls it a Bayesian Belief Network in his process theory called active interence based on the Free Energy Principle. In essence, all of these terms point to a similar concept.

'Semantic' means 'Meaning', so a semantic network is a 'meaning network' – what some colloquially refer to as a 'mental map'.

We each have, within our minds, a semantic network, one that has developed over our life and learning experiences, that we use to interpret our perceptions of the world in any given moment.

For this reason, two people walking into a room will experience what they find in the room somewhat differently, interpreting it with their unique semantic networks that are drawn from each person's Explicit Memory.

⇒ Modeling with Semantic Networks