a semantic space along 3 dimensions - good/bad, potent/weak, active/passive

Yes. And salience (for Freud, as"cathexis").

As for compression (.rar ? .jpg? -j-) of concepts, well, ok...

I believe it's the coding, storage & retrieval of 'things' into concepts/categories that's key. [ Reference to Piaget, accommodation/assimilation ], this here from an ancient discussion I had with someone in the world of conservative talk radio.

But, it's not even necessarily, btw, in what we'd agree upon as

"semantic space"

That's also a concept, within a web of concepts. (Hm, once I was taught about the 'nomological network' within linguistics & neuropsych.) But - maybe it's just me - but "semantic" implies language-based learning and thinking, with logical/syntactical rules, etc. And it's a fine model, for many people and purposes.

To go one step further, channeling Temple Grandin's "All Kind of Minds" perspective on perception, learning, and 'thinking' / 'behaving' / reacting -
some may lean more on visual memory, spatial relationships, music, or patterns to make sense of the blooming buzzing confusion.

good/bad, potent/weak, active/passive

Useful continuums, &/or scales to measure a trait or valence ...

Phil Zimbardo sort of appropriates these in his schema of personality of late, which he spoke about in his assessment of Trump's #psychopathology, adding the additional aspects of tense - orientation towards past, present, or future.

Spoiler - thin-sliced, he sees Trump as the most dangerous and unstable/volatile of all types in his model of personality:

"Unbridled Extreme Present Hedonism"

Now Zimbardo (shyness, sadism, and Stanford Prison Experiment) is one of the most accomplished, influential and respected social psychologists in history (along with Milgram and Bandura). He's not done personality assessment much, but clearly he's studied all that came before and came up with some adaptations for the most mentally warped 'billionaire' con artist/criminal "in the history of the universe". (Perfect, really). So yes, 100% I agree trump is "pathologically extreme", and that's after working in locked psych wards.

Zimbardo agrees passionately, too, as do a bevy of psychiatrists/psychologists who literally wrote the book on the still-expanding "Dangerous Case of Donald Trump". You can see what he said at http://psychservices.com/Goldwater.shtml. This was a long town hall about "The Goldwater Rule" (of not diagnosing 2nd hand), might be tedious... To go to the heart of it, scroll down to the 3rd photo, of Zimbardo with said book. Read from there.

And yes, totally... the extremism, novelty, and "cult behavior" all play a big role.

"It's complicated". As is #TrumpVirus the #cult & #media phenomenon.

But not him. Consistent as a rock - with slime growing on it.