CHAPTER 9 CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE Flashcards

1
Q

what is conceptual knowledge?

A

knowledge that enables us to recognize objects/events and to make inferences to their properties

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2
Q

what is a concept (1)

A

the mental representation of a class/individual

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3
Q

what is a concept(2)

A

categories of objects, events, and abstract ideas

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4
Q

what is a category?

A

all possible examples of a particular concept

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5
Q

what is categoriaztion?

A

the process by which things are placed in categories

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6
Q

describe the definitional approach to categorization

A

determining whether a particular object meets the definition of a category

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7
Q

what philosopher coined the term family resemblance to characterize similarities between objects?

A

Ludwig Wittgenstein

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8
Q

what is family resemblance?

A

refers to the idea that things in a particular category resemble one another in a number of ways

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9
Q

describe the prototype approach to categorization

A

when membership of a category is determined by comparing the object to a prototype of that category

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10
Q

what problem does family resemblance attempt to resolve?

A

definitions often do not include all members of a category

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11
Q

what is a prototype?

A

typical member of a category

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12
Q

who proposed a typical prototype is based on an average of members of a category that are commonly experienced

A

Elanor Rosch

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13
Q

what is Rosch’s idea of high typicality?

A

a category member closely resembling the category prototype

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14
Q

what is Rosch’s idea of low typicality?

A

a category member does not closely resemble a category prototype

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15
Q

variations within categories represent differences in _____

A

typicality

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16
Q

how did Rosch use prototypicality in an experiment?

A

quantified it by presenting participants with a category title and 50 members of the category for them to rate based on representation

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17
Q

what were the 3 conclusions Rosch came to from her prototypicality experiment?

A

high overlap of characteristics means there’s a high family resemblance

little overlap of characteristics means there’s low family resemblance

there is a strong relationship between family resemblance and prototypicality

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18
Q

who used sentence verification technique to determine how rapidly people could answer questions about an object’s category

A

Edward Smith

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19
Q

describe the sentence verification technique

A

presenting statements and are followed by a yes or no response to the statement being true

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20
Q

what did Edward Smith find using the sentence verification technique?

A

people responded faster for objects that are high in prototypicality

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21
Q

what is the typicality effect?

A

the ability to judge highly prototypical objects more rapidly

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22
Q

if someone was asked to list as many objects in a particular category, according to prototypicality, where on the list would the prototypical objects be?

A

in the beginning

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23
Q

prototypical objects can be affected more by the use of ____

A

priming

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24
Q

what is priming?

A

when presentation of a stimulus facilitates the response to another stimulus that usually follows close in time

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25
Q

how did Elanor Rosch use priming in an experiment?

A

used a colour name as the priming stimulus and presented pairs of colours asking if they were the same as the colour name

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26
Q

what were the 3 responses in Rosch’s priming experiment

A
  1. same and good representations
  2. same but poor representations
  3. different colours from different categories
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27
Q

what was Rosch able to conclude from her priming experiment? (2)

A

priming facilitates a response to a stimulus if it contains info needed

priming allows people to create images of prototypes in response to category names

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28
Q

describe the exemplar approach

A

determining whether an object is similar to other objects

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29
Q

what are exemplars?

A

actual members of a category that a person as encountered in the past

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30
Q

how does the exemplar approach explain the typicality effect

A

proposes that objects that are considered exemplars are classified faster

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31
Q

what is hierarchical organization?

A

leveled organization in which larger and more general categories are divided into small and more specific categories

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32
Q

what are Elanor Rosch’s 3 levels of categories?

A

superordinate = global

basic level

subordinate = specific

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33
Q

which level in Rosch’s hierarchical organization is known to be psychologically special? why?

A

basic level

going up a level = loss of information

going down a level = gain of information

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34
Q

____ can affect categorization

A

knowledge

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35
Q

how might an expert in trees identify an oak tree in comparison to a non-tree expert?

A

expert would identify on a more specific level therefore identify using oak tree

non-expert would identify on a basic level using tree

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36
Q

describe the semantic network approach

A

proposes that concepts are arranged in networks

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37
Q

Ross Quillian and Allan Collins had a network that..

A

consisted of nodes connected by links

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38
Q

describe concepts and links in Quillian and Collin’s semantic network

A

concepts: placed so that related concepts are connected
links: indicate how concepts are related to each other in the mind

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39
Q

what kind of model did Quillian and Collin’s semantic network serve as? why?

A

hierarchical model

levels were arranged so more specific concepts were at the bottom and more general are at the top

40
Q

what is cognitive economy?

A

storing shared properties just once at a higher-level node

41
Q

how did Quillian and Collins use reaction time to characterize their network?

A

to verify how a statement demonstrated travel distance in their network

42
Q

if someone responded to a statement and their reaction time was long, what would Quillian and Collins conclude about it?

A

in order for that person to retrieve the conceptual information about that statement, it required them to travel further in their semantic network

43
Q

what is spreading activation?

A

activity that spreads out along any link that is connected to an activated node

44
Q

what is the result of spreading activation?

A

additional concepts become primed and can be retrieved more easily

45
Q

describe the lexical decision task

A

participants reading words and non-words and indicating if each “word” is one or not

46
Q

who used the lexical decision task ?

A

David Meyer and Roger Schvaneveldt

47
Q

what independent variable did Meyer and Schvanveldt focus on in their Lexical Decision experiment?

A

association between the pairs of words

48
Q

in Meyer and Schvanveldt’s experiment words that were closely related had the fastest reaction times, why?

A

retrieval of one word triggered a spread of activation to other nearby locations/words that are related

49
Q

what was the major criticism in Quillian and Collin’s semantic network?

A

their theory did not explain typicality

50
Q

what is connectionism?

A

approach to creating computer models for representing cognitive processes

51
Q

who proposed the idea of connectionism?

A

James McClelland and David Rumelhart

52
Q

why was connectionism favoured?

A

its inspiration of how information is represented in the brain

can explain how concepts are learned and how brain damage affects conceptual knowledge

53
Q

what is parallel distributed processing?

A

proposes that concepts are represented by activity distributed across a network

54
Q

what is a simple connectionist network?

A

contains circles that represent neurons and lines that represent connections that transfer information between its units

55
Q

in the simple connectionist network, what are input units?

A

units activated by environmental stimuli and send signals to hidden units to send to output units

56
Q

what is connection weight?

A

determines how signals sent between units increase or decrease activity of the next unit

57
Q

what do connection weights correspond to in terms of neural activity?

A

activity at the synapse between neurons

58
Q

what would a high connection weight result in?

A

strong tendency to excite the next unit

59
Q

what would a low connection weight result in?

A

causing less excitation in the next unit

60
Q

what would a negative weight result in?

A

a decrease in excitation or inhibit activation on the next unit

61
Q

what 2 things does unit activation in a network depend on?

A
  1. signal that originates in the input units

2. connection weights throughout the network

62
Q

what is the basic principle of connectionism?

A

a stimulus presented to the input units is represented by the pattern of activity across other units

63
Q

do untrained networks have higher or lower connection weights?

A

lower

64
Q

are connection weights similar or different within the network when it is untrained? what does this and their initial weight allow?

A

the same

property nodes to be activated

65
Q

what does a properly working network require? why?

A

adjusted connection weights

so that activation of the concept unit and relation unit activates only certain property units

66
Q

how is adjustment of connection weights achieved?

A

the learning process

67
Q

what is the learning process?

A

when erroneous responses in the property units cause an error signal to be sent backward in the network

68
Q

what is back propagation?

A

error signals being sent back to the hidden units and the representation units provide connection weight adjustment

69
Q

what does back propagation result in?

A

correct activation of property units

70
Q

what are the 2 supporting ideas that demonstrate resemblance between connectionist networks and the brain?

A
  1. operation of connectionist networks are not totally disrupted by damage
  2. connectionist networks can explain the generalization of learning
71
Q

what is graceful degradation?

A

property in which disruption of performance occurs only gradually as parts of the system are damaged

72
Q

what are the 4 proposals about how concepts are represented in the brain?

A

sensory-functional hypothesis

multiple-factor approach

semantic category approach

embodied approach

73
Q

what is the sensory-functional hypothesis?

A

states our ability to differentiate between living things and artifacts depends on memory systems that distinguish sensory attributes and functions

74
Q

what is category-specific impairment?

A

when people lose the ability to identify one type of object but retained the ability to identify other objects

75
Q

what are the properties people typically consider when distinguishing between artifacts and living things?

A

living things depend on perceiving sensory features

artifacts depends on perceiving their functions

76
Q

what is the multifactor approach?

A

the idea of distributed representation

demonstrates how members of a specific category have similar perceptual attributes but one should consider more than one when grouping

77
Q

what is crowding?

A

refers to the fact that animals tend to share many properties

78
Q

what did the idea of crowding lead to?

A

patients who appear to have category-specific impairment do not have it all

79
Q

what new proposal/conclusion did crowding lead to?

A

the idea that patients who have difficulty recognizing living things have a difficulty distinguishing between items with similar features

80
Q

what is the semantic category approach?

A

proposes there are specific neural circuits in the brain for specific categories

81
Q

what did Alex Huth discover about the brain’s response to items from a particular category?

A

responses are distributed over a number of different cortical areas

82
Q

a response to the word hammer would activate …… based on Alex Huth’s experiment

A

visual areas that respond to the hammer’s shape/colour

and areas that respond to how a hammer is used/its motions

83
Q

what is the embodied approach?

A

states that our knowledge of concepts is based on reactivation of sensory and motor processes that occur during object interaction

84
Q

what does the embodied approach refer to?

A

how perception of an object and taking action with it interact

85
Q

what neurons are the link between perception and motor responses

A

mirror neurons

86
Q

who measured participant’s brain activity using an fMRI to examine the embodied approach?

A

Olaf Hauk

87
Q

what conditions did Olaf Hauk have his participants in?

A
  1. moving their left/right (foot/index finger) or tongue

2. reading action words (kick/pick /lick)

88
Q

what did results of Olaf Hauk’s experiment show?

A

same areas of the cortex activated by actual movements and reading the action words

89
Q

what is semantic somatotopy?

A

correspondence between words related to specific parts of the body and the location of the brain

90
Q

based on sematic somatotopy, people who have trouble producing actions associated with objects would….

A

have trouble recognizing the objects associated with the action

91
Q

what are the 2 kinds of features in the feature comparison model?

A

defining and characteristic

92
Q

what are defining features?

A

those essential to a concept

93
Q

what are characteristic features?

A

those common to many members of a category but are not esssential

94
Q

describe the 2 stages of the feature comparison model

A
  1. comparing the degree of similarity of both kinds of features (high/low)
  2. only comparing defining features
95
Q

what does the feature comparison model explain and what can it not explain?

A

can explain the typicality effect

cannot explain priming effects