The Structure of Knowledge in the Human Brain

Levels of Abstraction in the Brain

Good news.  My coauthor, Melissa Baucus, and I had a neuroscience manuscript accepted for presentation in the Entrepreneurship Division of the 2014 Academy of Management Meeting taking place August 1-5 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Opportunity Conception: An Analysis of Percept-Concept Structures in the Human Brain

Abstract

We advance entrepreneurial-opportunity research by distinguishing between the external world of episodic experiences + environmental processes, and three levels of abstraction in the human brain: neural coding, percepts-episodic memory and concepts-semantic memory. Percepts enable the entrepreneur to “see” the future (a business venture), while opportunity conception occurs at the semantic-concept level of abstraction.

Percept-concept structures align with neural anatomy and exhibit a general-to-specific, hierarchical and categorical structure, with two characterizations of the semantic-concept space: (1) a feature-encoded pyramid whose base encodes broad concepts and apex represents episodic-specific information; and (2) a smooth semantic-concept (opportunity) space that exhibits multiple gradients tied to similarities (closeness) of concept categories. In short, a common semantic-concept space may exist, with the caveat that this shared semantic space is likely bounded by context. 

We offer nine premises that may inform research questions for understanding how cognition occurs and the percept-concept structures entrepreneurs may possess. From these, we hope, it may be possible to articulate a conceptual framework for the entrepreneurship discipline grounded in what exists in the brain without the imposition of assumptions from economics or other disciplines.