chapter 5

Question 1

what are the prefrontal regions of the brain known for

Answer 1

-Associated with extracting meaning from pictures and sentences
-Left prefrontal: verbal material
-Right prefrontal: visual material

Question 2

what do the the posterior regions of the temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes aid in

Answer 2

Categorical information

Question 3

explain the memory for meaning vs. memory for exact wording study with the different sentences

Answer 3

Participants warned/not warned about exact wording memory test (Wanner, 1968), if people knew they would literally be asked about the wording later on
-Measured ability to remember meaning versus style of the sentence and effect of warning participants
-People tend to do the best when they can extract the underlying meaning behind words or what is going on, however we still have an impressive ability to understand details
-Giving people instructions, trying to see if people would remember meaning of instructions or exact meaning of instructions

Four groups with different instructions
-When you score your results, do nothing to correct your answers but mark carefully those answers which are wrong
-When you score your results, do nothing to correct your answers, but carefully mark those answer which are wrong
-When you score your results, do nothing to your correct answers but mark carefully those answers which are wrong
-When you scores your results, do nothing to your correct answers but carefully mark those answers which are wrong

The words “mark carefully” it does not matter what order they are in, it means the same thing
-“Correct your answers” vs. “your correct answers” mean slightly different things
-People were then asked to recall exactly what they read, people were either warned or not warned that they would have to do this

Results
-Memory is better for changes of meaning than for changes of style.
-Better memory for the correct your answers piece
-Memory for meaning is equally good whether people are warned or not.
-Warning did have an effect on memory for the stylistic change.

Interaction
-Memory for meaning is always good whether people are warned or not, memory for the wording is not good when people are unwarned, but gets better when people are warned (still never as good as meaning, because meaning is something that seems to matter)

Question 4

early experiment for memory of visual information and the similar study in the future

Answer 4

SHEPARD (1967): EARLY EXPERIMENT
-Compared memory for pictures with memory for verbal material
-Found memory for verbal information good; memory for visual information nearly perfect

BRADY AND COLLEAGUES (2008)
-Demonstrated capacity for remembering pictures
-2500 pictures, 87.5% accuracy

Question 5

explain the penny study that shows visual memory isnt always perfect

Answer 5

Penny study
-Participants were shown pictures of pennies and had to determine which one was the real penny
-Participants struggle to determine the actual image, people have held pennies and looked at them many times in their lives, but have never really paid attention to the actual image on the penny because it does not change the meaning of the penny, we do not remember things that do not matter

Question 6

explain memory for the meaning of a picture study with the teacher in the classroom

Answer 6

-Participants studied pictures of scenes
-Type change versus token change
-Subjects are sensitive to meaning-significant changes in a picture.
-The meaning of a picture is more memorable than style.
-Participants were shown two pictures and then had to point out the differences between that one and the second one they were shown
-Cannot notice when the teacher has different pants, but do notice when the map is showing something different because the teacher is teaching something different

Question 7

explain the laundry video and how it relates to meaningful memory

Answer 7

-Memory for “not meaningful” information
-To the extent to what we are encoding is meaningful to us, the better we are able to remember it
-Video about the laundry

Question 8

explain faces vs snowflakes study

Answer 8

-Memory for faces versus snowflakes
-People have good memory for faces, snowflakes are similar to faces in that they tend to be unique and all look different from one another, but there is no meaning to how they look
-With faces you will make meaning, oh they look like me

Question 9

explain the meaningful words vs abstract picture study

Answer 9

-Recognition memory for meaningful words versus abstract pictures
-When people had to try and remember abstract pictures they were not able to do it

Question 10

explain the droodle study

Answer 10

Memory for Pictures Tied to their Interpretation
BOWER, KARLIN, AND DUECK (1975)

Subjects studied and recreated “droodles” with or without an explanation of their meaning, would then later ask participants to recreate these pictures
-(a) A midget playing a trombone in a telephone booth. (b) An early bird that caught a very strong worm (pictures were abstract but these were meaningful explanations)
-When people were given explanations for the pictures they were better able to draw the pictures

Question 11

what are the two systems for propositional representations

Answer 11

amodal symbol system vs. perceptual symbol system

Question 12

what is the amodal symbol system

Answer 12

-Elements within the system are inherently non-perceptual.
-Ex. Skeleton in class; What is stored is inherently not a picture of the skeleton in the class, it is an abstract representation and you can turn it into a picture or turn it into words

Question 13

what is the perceptual symbol system

Answer 13

All information is represented in terms that are modality specific and basically perceptual.
-When you recall the skeleton later tonight, you have actually seen the skeleton, and that is what is stored in your brain, a visual representation of it, you can still convert it into other things

Question 14

where did perceptual symbol system come from

Answer 14

DUAL-CODE THEORY (Paivio, 1971, 1986)
-Information is represented in combined verbal and visual codes.
-This is where perceptual symbol system came from, can talk about other codes as well like movement

Question 15

explain sentence study with hammer

Answer 15

-When people understand a sentence, they actually come up with a perceptual representation of that sentence.
-Concepts are represented in brain areas similar to those that process perceptions.

Ex. Describe someone hammering a nail, in one condition people heard about hammering a nail into a wall; in the other condition, people heard about a person hammering a nail into the floor

Asked people to identify what they were looking at, when people heard about people hammering into a wall they were quicker to identify the nail being hammered into the wall than they did being hammered into the floor, and vice versa
-Evidence for storing some perceptual thing,

Question 16

what are categories

Answer 16

-Give us great economy in representation and communication, when we sort similar things into categories (e.g. cars, most driving cars work the same way)
-Help us to predict
-Strongly influence the way experiences are encoded and remembered

Question 17

negative effect of categories

Answer 17

-Categorization can lead to stereotyping (Dunning & Sherman, 1997).
-When we stereotype or reason about groups of people this is a negative thing, but it is the same process

Question 18

explain network representations in semantic networks (diagram on powerpoint)

Answer 18

Used to encode conceptual knowledge (Quillian, 1966)
-Proposed that people store information about various categories in a network structure

Question 19

what is an isa link

Answer 19

A particular link in a semantic network that indicates the superset of the category

Question 20

what are the conclusions about semantic networks

Answer 20

1) Facts stored directly with concepts are retrieved more quickly, shows that this model actually works, do not always respond to things equally quickly
-Canaries can sing
-You would do this one faster because this is specific to canarys
-Canaries have feathers
-This would take a bit longer because this goes with a more general category

However, frequently encountered facts are stored directly with concepts, even if they could be inferred from higher level concepts
-Ichthyologist who studies respiration in sharks may verify these sentences equally fast despite hierarchy
-Fish have gills
-Sharks have gills

Distance and strength both matter

But some information seems lost
-Such as typicality
-Ex. When someone pictures a bird they typically do not picture an ostrich, unless there is something atypical about you
-Bird: robin vs. ostrich

Question 21

what are schemas

Answer 21

An organized cluster of information about a particular topic
-Abstractions from specific instances that can be used to make inferences about instances of the concepts they represent

House (typical values listed below)
-Isa: building
-Parts: rooms
-Materials: wood, brick, stone
-Function: Human dwelling
-Shape: rectilinear, triangular
-Size: 100-10,000 square feet

Question 22

what is slot structure

Answer 22

Slots specify values of various attributes that members of a category possess.

Question 23

explain default values

Answer 23

-A typical value for a slot in a schema representation
-People assume default values unless told otherwise

Question 24

how are schemas useful for inferencing

Answer 24

People will infer that an object has the default values for its category, unless they explicitly notice otherwise.

Question 25

explain the studying with schemas being used for inferencing in the office

Answer 25

BREWER AND TREYENS (1981)

-People will infer that an object has the default values for its category, unless they explicitly notice otherwise.
-Had someone meet in the waiting room and then bring them into the office and have them wait in the room to make sure that the previous participant is done,
-Then have them write down everything they remember from the room they were just in

The fact that it was an office had some interesting effects on what they remembered was in the room
-Some things you remember typically being in offices like a chair and a desk (participants were likely to remember these things)
-Some things were atypical for an office like a skull or a circular fan (people were less likely to remember these things)
-Many people remembered there were books in the office even though there were actually no books there

Question 26

explain how Schemas allow for variation in the objects that might fit a particular schema. (study with different kinds of birds)

Answer 26

-Some category members are more typical. Show people members of a category and ask how typical these pictures were in the category
-Rosch (1973, 1975, 1977): Birds: Robins vs. Chickens
-Rating of typicality, found that people rated robins as more typical
-Speed of judgment, measured reaction time to see how quickly people could verify things were members of a category, people made typical judgments quicker
-Replacement in sentences, gave people a bird and had them come up with a sentence with bird in it, then replaced the word bird with the word robin, how sensible is the sentence with the word robin, the sentences were more sensible with robin in them

Question 27

explain the study with cups and atypical cups and what it shows

Answer 27

-Had people look at cups, some were best described as cups and others were best described as bowls, when they showed people these things they asked the people what they were looking at
-As the thing got wider and wider people described things as bowls more frequently and as a cup less frequently
-They redid the study, same thing but asked people to picture it filled with mashed potatoes
-People are less likely to call it a cup, more likely to call it a bowl
-The context is important

Question 28

what are event concepts/schemas

Answer 28

events have conceptual structure as well as objects.

Event schemas that involve stereotypic sequences of actions

Question 29

explain the study with the event schema

Answer 29

-new events are encoded with respect to general schemas and subsequent recall is influenced by the schemas,

People use scripts to fill in missing details, we can use scripts to understand what we are hearing and use that information
-Imagining someone telling you a story about going to a fancy restaurant but does not explicitly tell you that they paid the bill, when people are asked if the person paid the bill, they will say yes even though that is not a part of what they were originally told
-Makes sense – I would assume you paid your bill even if you don’t tell me

Question 30

how can categories be represented

Answer 30

Categories can be represented either by abstracting their central tendencies or by storing specific instances of categories.
-Checking out all the instances of dogs you remember or you have a prototypical abstract of a thing that is a representation of a dog

Question 31

what are abstraction theories

Answer 31

-abstract general properties from the instances we have studied
-you have a general idea of characteristics of dogs

Question 32

what are instance theories

Answer 32

-store only specific instances, with the more general inferences emerging from those instances
-We use each at different times

Question 33

explain research trying to induce people to use one of the aforementioned theories to visualize things

Answer 33

Examples of the drawings of artificial animals used in the PET studies of Smith, Palatino, and Jonides (1998) showing that when people sometimes use rule-based abstractions, the prefrontal cortex is active, and when they use memory-based instances to represent categories, occipital visual areas are active.
-Reasoning about rules: these ones were from Venus (e.g. the black species are from Venus)
-When people memorized which creates were from which planet that is memory-based

Question 34

what about natural categories in the brain (rather than ones in the lab)?

Answer 34

Differences have been shown in the way people think about biological and artifact categories

Each is supported by different brain regions
-Temporal & occipital lobes – biological
-Things that are alive, like animals
-Animals are typically things that we look at and see, part of brain that lit up when you encountered them before

Frontoparietal (& high temporal) – artifacts
-Things that you do something with, like a hammer
-Things we have had more experience with, we have all used a hammer or a saw before
-Frontoparietal is between frontal cortex and parietal lobe, near the motor lob and somatosensory cortex; same parts are active when you’ve encountered hammers before
-Could be because of what we do with these things