exam 3 Flashcards
(38 cards)
What is knowledge?
-what is known about a particular field,
-expertise and skills acquired through
experience or education
-awareness or familiarity gained by
experience of fact or situation
Usefulness of categories
Can provide lots of information if the category of something is known • Don’t need to have experience with specific cat to know about it • Allow you to make inferences • Understand behavior
What are concepts?
• = complex, abstract ideas or mental
representations about something
• = unit of knowledge
Definitional approach to categorization
we can decide whether something
is a member of a category by determining whether a particular object meets the definition
of the category
limitation of the definitional approach to categorization
Definitions work well for some things, such as geometric objects. Thus,
defining a square as “a plane figure having four equal sides, with all internal angles the
same” works. However, for most natural objects (such as birds, trees, and plants) and many
human-made objects (like chairs), definitions do not work well at all.
The problem is that not all of the members of everyday categories have the same
features. So, although the dictionary definition of a chair as “a piece of furniture consisting of a seat, legs, back, and often arms, designed to accommodate one person”
may sound reasonable, there are objects we call “chairs” that don’t meet that definition.
family resemblence
Family resemblance refers to the idea
that things in a particular category resemble one another in a number of ways
there is No definite criteria every member must
meet
prototype approach to categorization
the membership in a category is determined by comparing the object to a prototype that represents the category
prototypicality-2 types
Variation in a category • High prototypicality- category member closely resembles prototype • Low prototypicality- does not resemble a typical member of the category
exemplar approach to categorization
Involves comparing objects to an exemplar object you have experienced in the past
Exemplars are members of the category
hierarchy of categories
global-furniture-members
are dissimilar in some aspect – more
abstract
basic-table-members who
are maximally similar; broadest and
share the most attributes
specific-kitchen table-members
are less distinct than basic level; less
abstract
sentence verification task
A technique in which the participant is asked to indicate
whether a particular sentence is true or false. For example, sentences like “An apple is a
fruit” have been used in studies on categorization
mental imagery
experiencing a sensory impression in the
absence of sensory input
Not limited to just one sense-Can imagine tastes, smells, tactile experiences, sounds
imageless thought debate
The debate about whether thought is possible in the absence of
images
some psychologists taking up
Aristotle’s idea that “thought is impossible without an image” and others contending that
thinking can occur without images
history of imagery research
Wilhelm Wundt proposed that along with sensations & feelings, images are a basic element of
consciousness
behaviorism’s effect on imagery research
Watson says studying imagery is unproductive because they are invisible to everyone but the person seeing the images
paired-associate learning
A learning task in which participants are first presented with pairs
of words, then one word of each pairis presented and the task is to recall the other word
paired-associate learning
A learning task in which participants are first presented with pairs of words, then one word of each pair is presented and the task is to recall the other word
conceptual-peg hypothesis
A hypothesis, associated with Paivio’s dual coding theory, that states that concrete nouns create images that other words can hang onto, which enhances
memory for these words.
Stephen Kosslyns mental scanning experiment
Participants would memorize a picture, Participants create mental images and then scan them in their minds and answer Y/N to find part of the image
metcalfe & wiebe
did an experiment designed to distinguish
between insight problems and non-insight problems
Hypothesis: people should feel differently as they work on insight & non-insight problems
• Prediction: insight problems- bad at predicting progress
• Prediction: Non-insight problems-good at predicting progress
• Method: gave people both insight & non-insight problems (math problems)
• People gave warmth ratings every 15 sec
• 1 (cold-far from solution) to 7 (hot-close to solution)
• Algebra- warmth ratings slowly moved towards hot, used a method for solving problem, good at predicting success
• Insight- solution is sudden, no clear method, combining information in new ways, harder to monitor closeness to
answer
funtional fixedness
An effect that occurs when the ideas a person has about an object’s function inhibit the person’s ability to use the object for a different function
an obstacle to problem-solving that is illustrated by Duncker’s candle problem and Maier’s two string problem. Situationally produced mental set is illustrated by the Luchins water jug problem
fixation
people’s tendency to focus on a specific characteristic
of the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution
what is a problem, according to psychologists?
A problem occurs when there is an obstacle between a present state and a goal and it is not immediately obvious how to get around the obstacle.
A problem is difficult and the solution not immediately obvious
means-ends analysis
A way of solving a problem in which the goal is to reduce the difference between the initial and goal states; subgoals
