108 final Flashcards
episodic memory
a person’s memory for specific events that were personally experienced
semantic memory
a mental thesaurus of knowledge a person possesses about words and other verbal symbols
Defining Attribute Theory
All concepts are defined by their attributes and organized hierarchically
Typicality Effects (problems with Defining Attribute Theory)
How prototypical an item is to the category
- people are slower to say a penguin is a bird than a canary is a bird even though they should be equally represented
Feature Analytical Approach
Categorizes items based on their defining features (necessary to the category) and characteristic features (not necessary but typical)
Feature Analytical and typicality effects
Stage one (typical) - if high or low overlap of all features, a yes or no is quick
stage two (atypical) - if moderate overlap, consider defining features
Prototype Theory
A concept is represented by a prototypical item. Includes characteristic features that are usually present not just necessary for the category
Superordinate
very broad categories, difficult to image
animal, plant, tool
Basic
levels at which categories are represented that contain the most useful information, easy to image
cats, tree
subordinate
highly specific example
siamese cat
What region do superordinate items activate?
prefrontal cortex
What region do subordinate items activate?
Parietal Region
Exemplar Theory
a concept is represented simply by all of the members that are in that concept
Issues with exemplar
implausible that people remember every example of every category
Ad Hoc categories
- people can create categories for items that are unlikely to be stored together (objects you can sit on)
War of the Ghost Story
People of English background (schema) read indigenous story and omitted details and produced shorter, more coherent stories.
Verbal labels (schemas on memory selection)
People’s memory of an image to replicate was impacted by the label they were given of the original sketch (if they were told two circles were glasses and asked to reproduce the image later, they will create an image that looks more prototypical of glasses)
Recall office material
people are highly likely to recall items in an office scene that fit the “office schema”
General rule of recalling material (office schema)
if time is limited and information describes a minor event = people remember schema consistent material
if information describes a major event that is inconsistent with schema = people will remember that item (huge wine bottle)
Whorfian hypothesis
language determines or influences thinking
Brown & Lenneberg (color vocabulary)
easy to name colors were more accurately remembered than hard to name colors
Heider (Dani Tribe)
- Dani only use 2 color words (light and dark)
- still remembered easy to name colors better
- suggested perception influences language not language influencing perception
Counting (chinese children)
Chinese numerical names are compatible with traditional 10-base numerations (15 is spoken as ten-five)
Chinese children learn to count earlier than american children
Phonology
the study of the way sound functions in the language
Phoneme
basic unit of sound
morphology
study of the internal structure of words
morpheme
smallest unit of meaning
free = old, the
bound = -er, -ist
semantics
the study of meaning, link between language and concepts
syntax
the grammatical rules that govern how words can be combined into sentences
pragmatics
knowledge of social rules that underlie language
Chomsky’s Approach to psycholinguistics
humans have an innate understanding of the principles of language
language is processed differently than other cognitive tasks
Surface Structure
the words that are actually spoken or written
Deep Structure
the underlying meaning of a sentence