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md2 Flashcards

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1
Q

Semantic Externalism

A

-movement tracing back to 1960-70s
-words get meaning from casual chains connecting us to things in world
-shakespeare, caveman, scientist all mean the same thing when they say “water”

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2
Q

Semantic Internalism

A

-words get meaning from images/descriptions that speakers associate those words with in their minds

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3
Q

Sematic Externalism and Scepticism; Brain in a Vat (Hilary Putnam)

A

-Hilary Putnam 1981 argued that “I am now a brain in a vat” cannot be understood by anyone who is actually brain in a vat
-inspired immediate backlash
-someone just placed in a vat could understand this sentence

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4
Q

Matrix Movie

A

-1999 Science fiction
-Neo’s life is simulation; war against machines have been lost
-Humans now trapped in VR pods
-Red pill (leave matrix) or blue pill (remain in matrix)

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5
Q

David Chalmers BIV

A

-Brain in vat is better off
-everyday beliefs about surroundings are true; not actually being deceived
-when BIV talks about ‘small book’ actually referring to subroutines in supercomputer; BIV is still right to say they are holding a book

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6
Q

Defense from Skepticism

A

-avoid skeptics; no point in arguing
-diagnose the appeal of skepticism; good thing (suspending judgement temporarily) taken too far

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7
Q

Reliabilism

A

-popular view of justification
-a belief is justified if it’s produced by a reliable psychological process (wishful thinking vs. standard perceptual processes, good reasoning, introspection)

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8
Q

Implicit Bias

A

-automatically activated, unconscious attitude or stereotype

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9
Q

Implicit Association Task (IAT)

A

-Nosek et al. examined 700,000 subjects on race-evaluation IAT
-over 70% of white participants more easily associated black faces with negative words (e.g., bad, war) and white faces with more positive words (e.g., good, peace)

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10
Q

Colour memory/perception

A

-Memory of colour effects perception of colour
-bananas appear slightly yellow even if achromatic

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11
Q

Cognitive Penetration of Perceptual Experience (+example)

A

-Occurs when cognitive states (e.g., belief, desires) influence content of perceptual experience
-e.g., people more likely to misidentify object as gun if primed with face of black man

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12
Q

Moral Judgements

A

-arbitrary factors can alter how we make judgements without our knowledge
-e.g., how immoral/moral is sex between 1st cousins?

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13
Q

Plato and Theory of Recollection (Anamnesis)

A

-in Plato’s Meno, Socrates attempts to illustrate that uneducated boy “already knew” how to find diagonal of square by asking a series of question
-Plato’s theory of knowledge: learning is actually recollection
-nativist

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14
Q

Direct Priming Effect

A

-when required to complete fragments of recently presented words and of new words, subject succeed more often with presented words
-experience of stimulus primes brain so that further experience W stimulus is processed faster

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15
Q

Implicit memory/knowledge (formation and examples)

A

-performance on task is facilitated in absence of conscious recollection
-non-declarative memories
-form though automatic processes and bypass conscious encoding track
-procedural memory, perceptual representation system (perceptual priming), classical conditioning, nonassociative learning

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16
Q

Explicit memory/knowledge

A

-revealed when performance on task requires conscious recollection of previous experiences

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17
Q

Species knowledge

A

-information acquired/contained within entirety of species
-e.g., literature, science
-individual (but not all) portions accessible to individual at any given time

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18
Q

Semantic memory

A

-“i know that” – knowing about things learned in past
-memory for word knowledge
-timeless; does not rely on ‘mental time travel’
-does not involve conscious recollection

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19
Q

Episodic Memory

A

-“i remember that” – remembering the past
-memory for episodes distinct in time and space
-associated with ‘mental time travel’
-conscious recollection of personal past experience
-based on 1st person experience

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20
Q

Explicit knowledge and brain

A

-medial-temporal/frontal lobes
-hippocampus: spatial memory/recognition
-rhinal cortex: object recognition
-mediodorsal nucleus: Korsakoff’s symptoms
-Basal forebrain: alzheimers symptoms
Mhrb

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21
Q

Hippocampus size

A

-larger in food storing birds than non-food storing birds
-larger in taxi cab drivers; volume increases with more time on job

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22
Q

Basic factors of memory as knowledge

A

-encoding: building a representation of new knowledge, ‘learning’
-storage: maintenance of that knowledge representation
-retrieval: accessing pre-existing knowledge, ‘remembering’

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23
Q

H.M, 1953

A

-1953, 27 yr old man H.M. underwent brain surgery to alleviate epilepsy
-had around one generalized convulsion every week and a number of partial convulsions daily
-medications weren’t working
-EEGs suggested convulsions originated from both temporal lobes
-underwent bilateral medial temporal lobectomy

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24
Q

H.M Bilaterial Medial Temporal Lobectomy

A

-unilateral medical temporal lobectomy had proven to be effective in pts with epileptic focus on 1 medial temporal lobe
-both lobes removed in H.M.
-involved removal of medial portion of both temporal lobes, hippocampus, amygdala, and adjacent cortex (rhinal cortex)
-succesful in terms of epilepsy; generalized convulsions almost completely eliminated, partial seizures greatly reduced
-IQ increased from 104-118
-resulted in severe amnesia

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25
H.M. Post-Surgical Assessment
-normal, bright, good language and social skills -could discuss childhood, teens -lost ability to form new memories that he could consciously recall until death at age 82 -favourite uncle died – relived grief each time he heard news -memory for events contained little after 1953
26
Tests to assess H.M.'s Amnesia
-mirror drawing test -pavlovian conditioning
27
Mirror-Drawing Test
-showed that HM’s anterograde amnesia was not for all types of long-term memories -performance improved across days despite never remembering having done the task before
28
Pavlonian Conditioning (HM)
-tone sounded before puff of air administered to one eye; eventually tone elicits eyeblink -learned the task – response still present 2 yrs later
29
Implicit Knowledge and Brain
-amygdala: memory for emotional significance of experience -inferotemporal cortex: role in storing memories of visual/auditory patterns -cerebellum: stores memories of sensorimotor skills Aic
30
Sensory Habituation
-Reduces consistent non-informative sensory experiences
31
Neurological Memory
-Hebb rule: if axon of presynaptic neuron is active while post-synaptic neuron is firing, synapse will be strengthened (fire together, wire together) -when cell persistently activates another nearby cell, the connection between the two cells becomes stronger
32
Brain states
-Network based activation appear correlated to cognitive states; not location dependent -specific patterns of activation relate to specific perceptual experience and behaviours -"Brain makes decisions before you even know it"
33
John Locke's Tabula Rosa
-minds are 'blank sheets' when born -all ideas acquired through experience -empiricism
34
Nativism and Empiricism
theoretical frameworks for the character of the psychological systems that underlie the acquisition of psychological traits
35
Empiricism (mechanisms, example)
-few distinct psychological mechanisms for acquiring psychological traits -explain psychological traits by appealing to domain-general mechanisms like statistical learning routines, memory retrieval, attentional mechanisms, associative connectivity -traits are result of environmental conditions and individual learning histories -e.g., behaviorist associative learning processes (classical and operant conditioning)
36
Empiricist Origin of Traits
-acquisition of all psychological traits depends on only a few psychological systems: empiricist acquisition base -e.g., psychological mechanisms for learning language are same as those for learning about object permanence
37
Empiricist acquisition base and Nativist acquisition base
-psychological systems responsible for psychological traits
38
Nativist origin of traits
-many distinct types of mechanisms and processes for acquiring traits -domain-general and domain-specific systems; nativist acquisition base
39
Organization of Learning (1990)
-C.R. Gallistel's nativist book -credits animals with specialized computational systems responsible for navigating, foraging -systems allow animals to learn such things as way home, optimal strategy for obtaining food in given region
40
Nativism: Poverty of Stimulus Argument
-information in a learner's environment is inadequate to account for an acquired psychological trait given only general-purpose learning systems
41
Arguments against Poverty of Stimulus
-not enough evidence to establish that environment is as impoverished as they claim -suggest that general-purpose learning systems may be capable of accomplishing learning task -e.g., can easily determine extensions of curry even if never seen before, but we don't have a curry-specific learning system -real stimulus is not impoverished; squirrels may learn behaviour from other squirrels, even if exhibiting this behaviour in isolation
42
Poverty of Stimulus evidence
-isolation experiments -children language acquisition
43
Isolation experiments
-subjects removed from all stimuli related to acquired trait -Irenaus Eibl-Eibestfelt: showed squirrels will exhibit burying/digging behaviour in isolation when given nuts
44
Children language acquisition
-children go through stage of adding extra "wh" word to sentences -speech exhibits systematic and predictable pattern with wh word in specific location -do not insert extra wh- phrases or use extra wh- words when extracting from infintival clauses -german, english, and children of other languages do this
45
Why psychological traits appear in impoverished states
-traits may be so important that they cannot be left to less reliable means of acquisition -may even be multiple specialized systems if important enough; e.g., chicks identifying mom -allows rapid acquisition of trait -less cognitive effort required
46
Chicks recognizing mother
-very important psychological trait -multiple independent systems -system of detecting large moving objects -system that relies on shape template
47
Argument from Animals
-plethora of specialized learning systems in animals; some shared across species, others unique -humans are also animals
48
Animal specialized learning systems
-developing mental maps of environment -plotting sun position (date/time) -avoidance of poisonous food -selecting foraging locations based on rates of return -signalling presence of predators -locating/building new nests sites/nests
49
Argument from animals evidence
-animal food aversion -dead reckoning
50
Animal food aversion
-rats who become ill after drinking flavoured water will avoid flavor, ignoring other auditory/visual clues -rats punished via shock learn visual/auditory clues, but punishment must occur within seconds of ingesting water; different psychological systems -some birds link illness with colour -vampire bats don't form taste aversions
51
Dead reckoning (and evidence)
-desert ants get back home by following straight line back to nest; environment is devoid of landmark clues -mechanism keeps track of direction changes and distance covered -if ant displaced, follows corresponding path in terms of distance/angle and then randomly search vincity -if ant's legs are made shorter or longer, ant will automatically overshoot/undershoot distance to nest -found in variety of animals, including humans
52
Object Permanence
-Jean Piaget -psychologists believed that this ability was built over time, must be learned -newborn chicks have object permanence; do not pass through Piaget's stages
53
Face perception
-faces are processed differently; thatcher effect, faces in clouds -fMRI studies in humans show activation in fusiform gyrus (fusiform face area) in response to faces -special neurons in macaques respond to faces -infants have preference for faces
54
Prosopagnosia
-face recognition impairment
55
Nativist view of face perception (and evidence)
-human (and other animals) brains contain info about face structure and have biases that lead to preference for faces -evidence includes infants, neural machinery, evolutionary considerations
56
Empiricist view of face perception (and evidence)
-constant exposure to faces and salience leads general learning mechanisms to develop face perception 'expertise' -evidence is that the fusiform face area responds similarly when people are trained to perceive "greebles"
57
Greebles
-structures that are shaped somewhat similarly to faces
58
Objection: Nativism is unproven
-Nelson Goodman (1967): Short of isolation experiment with actual infant, nativism isn't worthy of discussion -empiricism is default view, should be rules out before considering nativism -empiricism is preferred for being more simple, less costly
59
Counterargument: Nativism is unproven
-dispute is about structures/processes that subserve acquisition of traits -argument is based on best explanation, not on proof -nativism is very plausible; to ignore, strong argument is required -may be more computationally parsimonious (e.g., language acquisition) -computational load may be lighter due to specialized systems -more parsimonious in terms of evolutionary continuity
60
Objection: Nativism is unscientific
-theoretical laziness; does not explain origin of traits, just blames innate structure -nativism is welded to field of evolutionary psychology; 'so-so' stories -nativism is anti-empirical
61
Counterargument: nativism is unscientific
-isn't about identifying traits, but systems which can ultimately explain what empiricism cannot -Chomsky and Fodor were unenthusiastic about evolutionary approaches to mind -researchers were able to predict which species would acquire taste aversions due to evolution/adaptation
62
Objection: nativism is overly intellectualist
-mature behavioural capacities involve simple cognitive traits or none at all -nothing more to mind than perception and action-governing mechanisms (e.g., Rodney Brooks) -perception directly leads to action
63
Counterargument: Nativism is overly intellectualist
-Empiricists have overlooked evidence -empiricism under-intellectualizes the mind -e.g., bee-dance system of communication, ants selecting nests
64
Bee dance system of communication
-bees process info about movements of other bees with other info (e.g., food quality) to determine whether to leave nest, which direction/distance, all while processing change in sun position
65
Ants selecting nests
-selective to number of factors, e.g., floor size, ceiling height, entrance size, darkness level, hygeine level, proximity of hostile ant groups -exhibit stable, ranked preferences for these factors; cannot be learned given infrequency of use
66
Objection: Nativism is a confused doctrine
-nativists claim that psychological environment has nothing to do w/ environment -innateness is ill-defined, can't do meaningful work
67
Counterargument: nativism is a confused doctrine
-environment is not independent; question is what learning systems interact w/ environment to produce traits -purpose of nativism: domain-specific and domain-general systems -not about innateness, about acquisition base -innateness need not be defined; latin pill
68
Psychologically primitive
-traits that are not acquired via psychological processes -account of innateness called primitism
69
Latin pill
-hypothetical pill that implants knowledge of latin without any intervening psychological processes -not innate nor learned
70
Radical concept nativism
-Jerry Fodor -gave nativism about conceptual system a bad name -virtually all concepts corresponding to individual words (even ukelele) are innate -is not plausible
71
Origin of human concepts
-significant amount of concepts are part of acquisition base, not as many as Fodor suggested -these concepts are part of systems that comprise basis for acquiring further concepts -nativists should embrace large range of concepts acquired through learning, even empiricist learning systems
72
Concepts part of Nativist acquisition Base
-unlearned -objects, casuality, space, time, numbers, goals, functions, agency, movement, direction, events, sex, predators, danger, status, dominance, morality
73
Nativist learning theories
-cognitive sub-systems -domain-specific and general-purpose systems
74
Learning: Cognitive sub-systems
-rely on specialized acquisition systems for certain types of concepts -acquisition system provides template for concepts of this type -adctivated only in certain conditions, fill in template according to experiences of learner -e.g., domain-specific aquisition of concepts of animals in humans
75
Theory of Humans acquiring concepts of animals
-learner is sensitive to cues that item is new animal -new representation produced in presence of cues -perceptual info is recorded in conncection w/ representation, controlling subsequent activation -accompanying disposition to treat other items as animal only if they have same essential nature -essentialist thinking about animals (knowing that perception may be untrue) is robust across cultures, occurs early in development, may emerge with little parental support
76
Nativist learning: Domain-specific and general-purpose systems (and example)
-uses both general-purpose and domain-specific systems -exceeds function of individual systems -Pascal Boyer's account of origins of many religious concepts
77
Religious concepts
-Pascal Boyer -concepts draw upon small number of specialized systems that embody core intuitive theories, such as folk psychology, biology, physics -all part of nativist acquisition base -deviations from theories cause new religious concepts -deviations are unexpected and hence remembered and passed on to others -depends on experience and socialization
78
Factors of language learning
-inscrutability of reference: man points to rabbit and says Gavagai! What does he mean? -acoustic barrage: making right sounds, breaking sounds up, is gavagai one word or a string of words? -variability in speech: hot vs. HOT!!! -linguists have yet to map out grammar of single language, but toddlers master language in few years
79
Empiricist theory of Language
-behaviourist psychology (Watson, Skinner) -argue that child learns words through imitation and reinforcement -utterances are tied to 'stimulus properties'/features of object/event being observed
80
Chomsky's critique: Empiricist theory of language
-many stimuli we refer to don't impinge on our senses (e.g., moscow, idea) -what causes me to utter something is better explained by what is in my head rather than stimulus properties
81
Nativist theory of Language: Innate grammar
-Chomsky -humans possess capacity for language, activated by minimal environmental stimuli -Language Acquisition Device is encoded and contains informational constraints that enable language acquisition -very controversial -supported by poverty of stimulus, universal syntatic rules/principles
82
Nativist argument child for acquiring language
-children are not exposed to enough data to learn correct language rules if starting from scratch -if children were empiricist learners, they would not reliably arrive at correct grammar; yet they do -children are not empiricist learners
83
Children and turning statements into questions
-turning statements into questions (e.g., ecuador is in south america >>> is ecuador in south america?) -auxiliary verb from main clause must be moved to front of sentence; child must have concepts for main clause and auxiliary verb -auxiliary verb must be differentiated from lexical verb
84
Universal language rules
-Chomskyans have set out to discover whether there exists a feature that all languages share -this would support idea that there are genetically endowed, innate rules guiding language acquisition
85
Language principles and parameters
-Chomskyans -universal rules of grammar to all languages: Principles -certain features that differ between languages only narrowly vary: Parameters -principle examples: trace erasure principle, projection principle, empty category principle -parameter examples: null subject parameter, nominal mapping parameter, ergative case parameter
86
Principle of structure-dependency
-Grammatical processes function on constituents (word sequences functioning as units, such as phrases and clauses) of sentences, not single words -linear relations not used in sentence structure -process sentences in chunks, grammatical rules require that we know how to properly chunk sentences into constituents
87
Perameter of head directionality
-languages differ in whether head of phrase comes first or last -head is subject of phrase -The bee from outside flew into the classroom last thursday -English is is ‘head-initial’ language, head comes first -japanese is ‘head-final’ language, subject of verb phrases comes last

Cogs 200 (2 decks)

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