Introduction to the special issue on formal modeling of semantic concepts

We introduce the special issue on formal models of semantic concepts. After outlining the research questions that motivated the issue, we summarize the rich set of data provided by the Leuven Natural Concepts Database, and provide an overview of the seven research articles in the special issue. Each of these articles applies a formal modeling approach to one or more parts of the database, attempting to further our understanding of how people represent and use semantic concepts.