There is a format for recording information based around connections called a concept map. Concept maps are spatial representations of knowledge, in which a concept is represented as a circle (node) and a connection/statement is represented as a line connecting two circles (edge). But concept mapping is limited in its current forms. Making a concept map is messy and often when handwritten. It is very difficult to have enough foresight in making a concept map as to prevent lines (representing edges) from crossing each other all over the page. Moreover, though concept maps have advantages over bullet points and other linear note-taking techniques in their ability to store and model nonlinear knowledge, existing software that is meant for creating concept maps is meant more for presentational purposes, e.g., creating a diagram that might be included in a report, than for recording notes in real time and understanding, organizing, or manipulating notes.

To test whether these distributed representations of meaning are neurally plausible, a number of studies have attempted to learn a mapping between particular semantic dimensions and patterns of brain activation