People-focused knowledge management

Semantic Memory
Semantic memory is where we keep factual knowledge in the
broadest sense and where we attach meanings to this knowledge. It
contains abstract, mental (cognitive) representations and mental
models of everything we know: facts, concepts, words, expectations,
schemata, and many other forms of knowledge. In semantic memory,
we also keep our notions about relations between the different mental
objects. We have associations and categorizations. Mental objects
recalled from semantic memory are expressed as abstract thoughts
(cognitions) rather than behavior. Semantic memory is thought to be
divided into lexical memory and encyclopedic memory.
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Memory and Knowledge Categorizations
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Lexical Memory
Lexical memory is where we hold all our knowledge about 
language: words, idioms, syntax, common expressions, and other
structural and detailed information that we use to parse and decode
incoming messages. It contains the “semantic labels,” that is, the
words we associate with and use to describe specific concepts.
Lexical memory may also contain selected aspects of metaknowl-
edge — knowledge of what we know. It is, in effect, an abstracted
overview of our knowledge, a lexicon of the knowledge that we have.
It is about knowledge.
From a Western perspective, where we operate with written, often
phonetic versions of the words we pronounce, we tend to forget the
symbolic-conceptual relations of the ideographs of written Chinese
or Japanese, and similarly, the signs used by the deaf, or icons used
in modern computer graphic interfaces. These symbolic-conceptual
relations are also stored in our lexical memory and may bear no rela-
tionship to the conventional semantic labels that we use as words in
our spoken language.
The organization of lexical memory may differ significantly from
person to person. Some have highly developed language representa-
tions of their concepts — they also “think in language” — whereas
others (perhaps some 20 percent of all people) do not have strong
semantic labels for their concepts and do not think in words and 
language. They may think with “concepts,” “pictures” (i.e., visual
representations), or even models such as interrelated and dynamic
systems objects.
Since people are quite different, they have considerably different
strengths. However, the absence of capabilities that the majority of
the population possesses often are considered “weaknesses.” This 
distinction is important when considering a person’s competence.
Lexical memory — as all other memories — displays specific charac-
teristics. When one characteristic becomes dominant (such as the
ability to keep track of semantic labels), it normally means having
fewer capabilities in other areas, and vice versa. These differences in
degrees of dominances indicate that individuals will present a broad
diversity of capabilities and mental emphases (Gardner 1983).