Exam 2 Flashcards
(75 cards)
Compare the classical and family resemblance theories of categorization. Describe three experiments from your book and/or lecture which support a Family Resemblance (or graded structure) view.
Classical theory: Concepts have precise definitions based on defining features
Family resemblance theory: We group concepts into categories based on a similar prototype.
Rosch 1975, used vehicle & others in a study where participants where asked to rate the extent to which basic level examples represented their image or idea of the subordinate category. NEED TWO MORE XXX.
What are the claims of some of the other theories of categorization mentioned in lecture & text (e.g., Exemplar View, Psychological Essentialism, etc.)? How do these theories contribute to a fuller understanding of how people represent concepts?
Exemplar view: assumes that there is no single mental representation of a concept instead all one has in memory are the specific items or examples of the concept.
Psychological essentialism: belief that many categories have some essential components that explains how and why deep & surface features coalesce
These theories XXX
What are “ontological categories?” How do neuropsychology patients exhibit differential abilities to identify/define living vs. non-living entities? How can one indicate relationships among concepts in a semantic network?
(a) What are the various levels of linguistic analysis? (b) How does research in tip-of-the-tongue and lexical speech errors shed light on word retrieval?
Prosody, Phonology, Morphology
TOT state is due to partial activation of the phonological specification og a word, specifically for beginning sounds or letters
Compare the nativist theory of Chomsky to the empiricist theory of BF Skinner. Is there evidence for a critical period in language learning, as Lenneberg proposed? For which aspects of language?
Chomsky believed language learning to be innate, while BF Skinner argued that we develop our language through what we pick up from the surrounding environment. There is evidence for a critical period in language learning which seems to be when you are very young before age 10, however this seems to be for grammatical aspects of language, vocabulary and words in of itself seems to not necessarily be as strongly affected
Briefly describe the symptoms of Broca’s aphasia, Wernicke’s aphasia, conduction aphasia, and anomia. Where are these patients’ deficits (within the levels of analysis discussed above)? Be able to locate the place in the cortex which, when damaged, causes each of these language syndromes.
Broca’s aphasia symptoms are when one struggles to form complete sentences with poor and lacking grammar. Due to damage of left frontal inferior gyrus
Wernicke’s aphasia: patients can speak fluently however the sentences are often meaningless and filled with neologisms and paraphasias. Due to damage to superior temporal gyrus of left hemisphere
Anomia: constant tip of tongue state, patients consistently fail to retrieve names of common objects. There is semantic anomia which is a degradation of semantic knowledge, and pure anomia which is a perpetual ToT state with problems with phonological retrieval. Located in bilateral occipital and parietal cortex, along with some temporal lobe activation. Also left temporal regions in and around Wernicke’s area.
What are the strong vs. weak claims of the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis? Of Universalism? What types of concepts have been studied to see if they are influenced by linguistic relativity?
What are Type 1 and Type 2 decision making? Explain the arguments and theories about whether people are rational or not when they make decisions. What did Tversky & Kahnemann mean when they said that the biases people use in reasoning/decision-making tasks are like “cognitive illusions?” Are they right? (b) What are some of the biases that people exhibit in decision making (and know how to apply them to new examples)?
Arguments about wether ppl are rational would be expected value theory which is making a gamble when decision making. EPV is rational decision making, however it represents what humans are SUPPOSED to do, but we don’t
Cognitive Illusions: ppl can’t help but make errors in reasoning even when they know about the errors
Heuristics
How can people’s reasoning/decision-making be improved? Why would frequency formats (such as those used by Gigerenzer & Sedlmeier) make people more accurate at estimating conditional probabilities?
Concepts, categories
Concepts are mental representations made up of one’s knowledge about a type of object, or an idea. Categories are the actual divisions that we use in dividing up the world
Nominal categories
Based on definitions set by humans
Natural categories
Objects found in the natural world
Artifact categories
Objects that are human made
Living/Nonliving & Animate/Inan. Categories
Living is any living thing. Nonliving is something that is not living. Animate is anything that moves and acts of its own will. Inanimate is anything that is consistently in a still mode, non living.
Superordinate
The most general concept
Basic level
Most commonly used level
Subordinate
Subcategories under basic level concepts (detailed)
Classical view
The view that concepts have precise definitions based on defining features
Necessary & jointly sufficient features
Apart of the classical view that defines categories
Family resemblance view
States that categories are based around one central prototype
Prototype
A part of family resemblance view. Basically what is used as reference for categories
Linguistic hedges
Qualifying phrases to indicate the peripheral status of some category members (“technically it is a fruit but it’s a veggie as well”)
Peripheral Members
Items that have minimal overlap with other items in the category
Characteristic features
The defining features of a specific category
