7. General Knowledge

Question 1

How is general knowledge stored and what does it consist of?

Answer 1

semantic memory

Consists of individual words, concepts, and schemas (well integrated packets of information)

Question 2

Why is general knowledge important? (3)

Answer 2

Perception
Memorizing information - organise material during learning and retrieval when words are presented by category.
Making sense of information

Question 3

Why is so much of our knowledge stored in form of concepts? (3)

Answer 3

1) Concepts provide a very efficient way of representing our knowledge of the world
2) Concept permit us to make accurate predictions about objects in the world
3) Communication and convey information

Question 4

Why is category membership so problematic?

Answer 4

1) boundaries are often unclear and ambiguous
2) individual differences in beliefs about the nature of category membership. (all or none vs flexible; depends on context)

Question 5

What is semantic dementia?

Answer 5

Widespread loss of knowledge about the meanings of concepts and words.
Involves damage to anterior temporal lobes.
Loss of meaning across ALL sensory modalities.

Question 6

Describe problems with visual modality in semantic dementia.

Answer 6

Problems categorizing objects from pictures. Can categorize pictures at general level (eg. animal; non-living etc.) better than an intermediate (eg. dog vs cat) or specific level (eg. labrador, collie). Hard to assign detailed meaning to visual objects.

Question 7

Describe problems with auditory modality in semantic dementia.

Answer 7

Can’t identify objects when listening to their characteristic sounds (eg. phone ringing, dog barking etc.)

Question 8

Describe problems with sense of taste in semantic dementia.

Answer 8

Poor at identifying flavours when tasting different flavoured sweets

Question 9

What is spared in semantic dementia?

Answer 9

1) initial stage - intact autobiographical memory and episodic memory
2) visuo-spatial abilities
3) language - but speech is often not meaningful

Question 10

What are the negative consequences associated with semantic dementia? (2)

Answer 10

1) Often exhibit behavioral changes such as lowered emotional mood states, rigid patterns of behavior, and mild obsessions.
2) Loss of sense of personal identity

Question 11

What is a concept? What is a category?

Answer 11

Concept - a mental representation that represents a category of objects 
Category - a set or class of objects that belong together.

Question 12

What are the 3 levels of hierarchies within concepts?

Answer 12

1) superordinate
2) basic
3) subordinate

Question 13

Describe the features of the superordinate level of concepts. (2)

Answer 13

Very broad (eg. animal)
Lack informativeness

Question 14

Describe the features of the basic level of concepts. (5)

Answer 14

• General term (eg. dog)
• Used most often for naming; most useful
• Best balance between informativeness and distinctiveness.
• Most general level at which people use similar motor movements for interacting with category members
• Usually acquired first by young children

Question 15

Describe the features of the subordinate level of concepts. (3)

Answer 15

• Very specific (eg. poodle)
• Lack distinctiveness
• Sometimes we need to be more specific (eg. if we are learning about different types of plants) When we talk to specialists, they tend to use subordinate names more often in their expert domain than in their novice domain (eg. bird experts, dog experts)

Question 16

Which is the only object that we usually use the subordinate level rather than basic level to describe?

Answer 16

FACES! Reflects the knowledge and expertise we have in recognising individual faces because it is such an important ability in our everyday lives.

Question 17

What does the semantic activation theory argue about the organisation of semantic knowledge?

Answer 17

Argued that semantic memory is organized on the basis of semantic relatedness or semantic distance. Whenever a person sees, hears, or thinks about a concept, the appropriate node in semantic memory is activated. Causes activation to spread strongly to closely related concepts and weakly to those more distantly related.

Question 18

How can semantic relatedness be measured? List 2 ways.

Answer 18

1) Asking people to decide how closely related pairs of words are
2) Asking people to list as many members as they can of a given category. Members produced most often are regarded as most closely related to the category.

Question 19

Which effect supports the spreading activation theory? Briefly describe it.

Answer 19

Typicality effect. Using a lexical decision task (fruit vs not fruit) Take less time to decide for typical fruits than atypical fruits. Assume that typical category members are closer semantically to the category label than atypical ones.

Question 20

When target word (eg. butter) is immediately preceded by a semantically related word (eg. bread) or by unrelated word (eg. nurse), predict the outcome of the study based on the spreading activation theory.

Answer 20

According to the theory, activation should have spread from the first word to the target word only when they were semantically related. This activation should have made it easier to identify the second word. As predicted, there was a facilitation/semantic priming effect only for semantically related word.

Question 21

What is mediated priming? (hint: 1-link vs 2-link words)

Answer 21

More activation should spread to 1-link word than 2-link words. So facilitation effect should have been greater for 1-link words. Mediated priming should occur through automatic activation of the link between ‘spoon’ and ‘soup’ and link between ‘soup’ and ‘can’. (target -> 1 link -> 2 link)

Question 22

When was the mediated priming effect found?

Answer 22

Mediated priming effect was only found when participants could use strategic processing. There was not effect when they could use only automatic processing.

Question 23

What is a limitation of the activation spreading theory in explaining schematic knowledge?

Answer 23

Little relevance to the processing of meaning within semantic memory.
Eg. “A cat is a mammal” vs “A cat is NOT a mammal”
Meanings are very different but semantic activation from ‘cat’ to ‘mammal’ is similar

Question 24

Patients with semantic dementia usually have more problems identifying living or non-living things (manmade)?

Answer 24

Living things – anterior, medial, and inferior parts of the temporal lobes
(non-living - Damage to fronto-parietal areas extending further back in the brain)

Question 25

What are the 2 different properties of information for living and non-living things?

Answer 25

1) perceptual/sensory properties
- What an object looks like
- More important for living things
- Can be categorised into visual (eg. colour, motion, shape), auditory, taste, and tactile
2) functional properties
- What an object is used for
- More important for nonliving things
- Can be categorised into entity behaviors (what a thing does) and functional information (what humans use it for)
* both properties are stored in different parts of the brain

Question 26

Give evidence to suggest that semantic memory consists of a widely distributed network of brain areas.

Answer 26

Brain areas activated during semantic memory tasks depend on stimulus modality (visual vs auditory), concept type (concrete vs abstract; natural vs artifacts), and the type of object properties accessed (visual vs action).

Question 27

What are the 2 approaches to explain the organisation of concepts?

Answer 27

prototype & exemplar approach.

Question 28

What does the prototype approach propose?

Answer 28

Proposes that each category has a prototype. An object is considered a member of the category if there is a good match between its features and the prototype. Basis of match is its resemblance to the category prototype. People tend to list features true only of a majority of category members.

Question 29

What is a prototype?

Answer 29

A central description or conceptual core representing the category.
A set of characteristic attributes or features in which some attributes are weighted more than others. Ask people to indicate attributes typical of a category to assess prototypes.
Eg. fruit → contains seeds, grows above ground, edible, sweet and round

Question 30

What is family resemblance?

Answer 30

Refer to shared features with other category members.
Category members having the highest family resemblance scores come closer to representing the category’s prototype, hence they are considered more typical.

Question 31

Why are prototypes useful?

Answer 31

Since boundaries of many categories are vague and hard to establish, prototypes help us establish what is most consistent and unchanging about a category/ concept. Prototypes represent its conceptual core.

Question 32

Which category members have the highest family resemblance scores?

Answer 32

Typical category members

Question 33

Number of attributes shared by 5 most typical members vs 5 least typical members. Which group has more attributes in common?

Answer 33

top 5 most typical members

Question 34

Family resemblance does not work on which category?

Answer 34

goal-derived categories.
Refer to categories in which all category members satisfy a given goal (eg. birthday presents that make the recipient happy)
Family resemblance scores didn’t predict typicality scores for members of goal-derived categories. Typical members are those best satisfying the goal rather than sharing attributes with other category members.

Question 35

Prototypes tend to represent a central tendency (average) within a category. But this sometimes fails when applied to _____.

Answer 35

Experts or novices.
We expect that trees of average height should be rated as best examples of trees.
Experts identified very tall, non-weedlike trees as best examples of trees. Their ratings were determined by an ideal tree rather than its typicality/representativeness
Novices determined ratings by their familiarity with the trees

Question 36

Comparing biological and artifact (manmade) concepts, a missing typical feature will affect categorization in which type of concept more?

Answer 36

biological concepts.
For biological objects, discrepant information greatly reduce our confidence that it is the specific object. But for man made objects, one piece of discrepant information had much less impact.
Prototype theory does not account for this difference between biological and artificial concepts

Question 37

What are the limitations of prototype theory?

Answer 37

1) Doesn’t work on all categories (eg. abstract categories; goal-drived categories)
2) Cannot provide coherent explanation of effects due to expertise, or differences between biological and artificial concepts.

Question 38

What does the exemplar approach propose?

Answer 38

Propose that there is a memory system storing many specific examples (exemplars). We store all instances of the specific object encountered in the past.

Question 39

How does exemplar theory explain faster categorical approach for typical members over atypical members?

Answer 39

Higher frequency it is encountered, the more typical the category member, the quicker the judgment.
“Is robin a bird?” vs “Is penguin a bird?”
If we have encountered more robins in the past, there are likely more stored instances of robins than penguins. Therefore, a robin instance will be retrieved from memory much faster than a penguin instance, resulting in different judgment times.

Question 40

What advantage does exemplar theory have over prototype theory? (hint: concrete vs variable categories)

Answer 40

Exemplar theories preserve the variability of instances in a category (stores all different instances), whereas a prototype is an average over the instances of a category and usually excludes such variability information. (eg. pizza vs ruler - both around 12 inches but pizza has more variability) Hence, exemplar theory predict variable categories better; prototype theory predict concrete categories better.

Question 41

When we ask participants whether a new object 19 inches in size was a pizza or ruler, what do they say?

Answer 41

PIZZA. Exemplar theory accounts for this.
If they used prototypes, there should have been a 50-50 split between pizza and ruler since prototype average is 12 inches for both.
If they use exemplars, size variability will be taken into account, participants will have predicted the object was a pizza.

Question 42

Exemplar approach works better with simple or complex concepts?

Answer 42

Complex concepts.
Simple concepts are learned by extracting common regularities (eg. all even numbers are divisible by 2). In contrast, more complex concepts lack common irregularities, so it is harder to learn them in that way, and so we rely on exemplars. (eg. language and their many exceptions)

Question 43

What are 3 limitations of the exemplar approach?

Answer 43

1) Less successful in application to learning simple concepts. Works better for complex concepts.
2) Exemplar models assume that every instance of a category encountered is stored in memory. But how do we explain information and storage overload?
3) Narrow in scope – not all my knowledge of any given concept is provided by hundreds of examples of that concept stored in LTM!!

Question 44

Besides prototype and exemplar approach, which other approach is used to explain concept organisation?

Answer 44

Knowledge-based approach
Emphasis on the causal relationships among features of concepts. Features of a concept are generally not totally independent of each other. Many features are often causally related, and these causal relations have powerful influence over categorization. (eg. axe is dangerous because it is sharp)

Question 45

Ahn et. al. Disease X
blurred vision –> headache –> insomnia
if John does not have blurred vision, does he have disease X?

Answer 45

most people will say no.

Initial cause of the disease carries more weight in deciding whether it is a member of a category

Question 46

Ahn et. al. Disease X
blurred vision –> headache –> insomnia
if John does not have insomnia, does he have disease X?

Answer 46

most people will say yes

cause that comes in later does not have so much influence in deciding whether it is a member of a category.

Question 47

Prototype & exemplar theories suggest that concepts are amodal. What does amodal mean?

Answer 47

Means that we possess a database of generalised categorical knowledge that is relatively detached from the goals of specific agents in everyday life.

Question 48

What does Lawrence Barsalou’s Situated Simulation Theory argue about concepts being amodal?

Answer 48

Argued that the amodal nature of concepts are incorrect! In everyday life, we don’t not process concepts in isolation. We process them in various settings that is influenced by current context. (goals and major characteristics of the situation)

Question 49

Using the concept of a bicycle, how does the Situated Simulation Theory illustrate that concepts are not amodal but rather dependent on context?

Answer 49

Barsalou argues that aspects activated depends on the individual’s current goals. Information about the tires is especially likely to be activated if you want to repair your bicycle, whereas height of saddle is important if you want to ride it.

Question 50

What connections does the Situated Simulation Theory emphasize?

Answer 50

Focus on connections among the conceptual system, the perceptual system, and the motor system.

Question 51

How does the Situated Simulation Theory explain abstract concepts?

Answer 51

Reported evidence that even abstract concepts are associated with some perceptual properties.
Eg. Settings associated with the concept (eg. scientists working in a lab for “invention”); Relevant mental states

Question 52

Discuss a piece of evidence that supports Barsalou’s contention that stored conceptual representations of objects include situational information.

Answer 52

Observers were shown novel objects presented in isolation or with situational information
Accurate object categorization was much better when full situational information was provided than when it was absent.

Question 53

Participants learned to make specific gestures to various colour cues (eg. red = poke; blue = open grasp)
After that, words were presented in these colours, but participants were told to continue to make the learned gestures to the colour.
Congruent trials – gesture was relevant to both word and colour.
Incongruent trials – different gesture was relevant to the word and colour
Findings – participants took longer to make the appropriate gesture to the colour on incongruent trials.
What do the findings suggest?

Answer 53

Suggest that words referring to concepts led participants to automatically access relevant gestural knowledge even when it impaired performance. Motor system is activated when we process concepts

Question 54

How do we know that motor system plays an important role in acquisition of many object concepts?

Answer 54

Concept learning was slowed down when motor processing of the object was disrupted by an ongoing motor task.

Question 55

What are schemas?

Answer 55

Organized packets of knowledge about the world, events, or people

Question 56

What is a script?

Answer 56

Type of schema used to store information about typical events
Eg. events/actions that usually occur when eating at a restaurant. Much agreement on the actions associated with the restaurant script.

Question 57

What are 2 types of script memory problems found in brain-damaged patients?

Answer 57

1) sequencing/script errors

2) semantic/meaning errors

Question 58

Patients with fronto-temporal dementia (damage to prefrontal cortex) failed to detect twice as many ______ errors as _____ ones.

Answer 58

sequencing; semantic
Suggests that the prefrontal cortex (used for complex cognitive processing) is more important in using script-based knowledge than assessing semantic knowledge.

Question 59

Give 4 uses of schematic knowledge.

Answer 59

1) Allow us to form expectations
2) Prevent cognitive overload; reduce cognitive processing
3) Important for reading and listening - Allow us to fill in the gaps in what we read or hear and so enhance our understanding. Specifically, they provide the basis for us to draw inferences as we read or listen.
4) Assist us when we perceive visual scenes - Probability of identifying the object was greatest when it was appropriate to the context, with activation of schematic knowledge of the scene facilitating visual perception.

Question 60

Show participants pictures of familiar objects and asked to describe a function for each one. Some objects are presented in complete form but others are incomplete. They are then given an unexpected memory test.
Findings – participants recognised most of the objects. But they tend to falsely remember seeing complete versions of pictures presented in an incomplete form.
What do the findings suggest?

Answer 60

Suggest that we use schematic information to complete the objects. People generate visual images of the presented objects in their mind and these images are reactivated at testing.

Question 61

What is boundary extension?

Answer 61

Observers remember the first photograph to be more extensive than in reality. Memory of the picture is more extensive than what you saw.
Memory system may be motivated to give you a more coherent and extensive picture in front of you; reconstruct details that are not there. Top-down processes combine with sensory information to give us a coherent representation of the scene. Our perceptual schemas allow us to form expectations about the visual world outside the boundaries of the scene. Sometimes we can’t discriminate between the part of our mental representation of a scene derived from sensory input (bottom up) and the part based on relevant perceptual schema (top down). Boundary extension occurs automatically.

Question 62

What is a limitation in explicit measures measuring stereotypes?

Answer 62

Social desirability bias

Question 63

Which test is used to assess implicit stereotypes?

Answer 63

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Question 64

What are some limtations of the IAT?

Answer 64

• Often assumed that processes underlying performance on the IAT and other implicit measures are relatively “automatic” and don’t involve conscious awareness. However, effects on the IAT can sometimes be controlled consciously. (practice effects) suggests that this assumption may be oversimplified.
• What exactly is it measuring?

Question 65

Are stereotypes stable over time?

Answer 65

No. They are unstable and changeable over time and it is influenced by context.

Question 66

Provide an example to show that stereotypes is flexible and can be influenced by context?

Answer 66

Eg. present participants with the word Italian. Stereotype of Italians - they are romantic. Ppl take a shorter time to decide if ‘romantic’ was a word because Italian activates the attributes of the Italian stereotype. When the word ‘Italian’ was accompanied by a picture of a rose, decision making was faster. But when the word was accompanied by a picture of an expensive car, decision making was slower, showing no evidence of stereotype activation. This suggests that appropriate contextual information is needed for stereotype activation.