Chapter 7: Knowing Flashcards
Exam 3 Study Guide
Semantic Memory (generic memory)
memory for knowing;
conceptual knowledge
context dependent
Semantic Knowledge
information (e.g., what Canada is, what a website is, who Tom Hanks is, etc.)
Episodic Memory
individual events that we experience;
context dependent
Arbitrariness
there is no inherent connection between the symbols (sounds and words) employed in a language and the meanings referred to by those units (referents)
Example: there is nothing about a chair that makes it a chair, we just call it that.
Semanticity
the study of word meaning (language must convey meaning)
Example: we know that “cat” means small, furry, domesticated animal; the word “book” means an object with bounded pages that is meant for reading or writing in.
Displacement
the ability to describe things that are removed in space and time
Example: tense of verbs (e.g., here, there, away; past, present, future)
Productivity (generativity)
we can form an infinite number of sentences from a finite number of words
Example: the woman walks home > the woman with long hair walks home > the woman with long curly hair and a dog walks home.
Spreading Activation
the process of accessing and retrieving information from a semantic network
Nodes in a Network
point of location in between semantic space;
nodes linked by pathways
Pathway
a label, directional association between concepts
Network
the entire collection of nodes connected to other nodes by pathways
Smith’s Feature Overlap Model
we represent concepts in long-term memory as feature lists (a collection of independent lists)
Feature Lists
a list of semantic features - simple one-element characteristics or properties of the concept
Semantic Network Model
The “correct” model because it can account for semantic priming, but the feature overlap model cannot
Classical View
people create and use categories based on a system of rules; rules identify necessary and sufficient features for something to be a member of a category
3 Classical Views
rules, probabilistic views, and explanation based
Natural Categories
concepts and categories that occur in the real world of our experience and have a complex internal structure
Prototypes
the central, core instance of a category (average of generic example of category) (e.g., Labrador is a better prototypical than a Chihuahua)
Explanation-Based Theories
we do not use “averages” or prototypes but instead we use specific instances or exemplars
Embodied Cognition
what we are doing affects what we perceive
Semantic Priming
indirect activation of a word or concept through spreading activation
Prime
any stimulus that is presented first (to see if it influences some later word)
Target
the stimulus that follows the prime
Explicit Semantic Priming
intentional recollection of previous experience achieve by direct reference to the experience during recollection
Implicit Semantic Priming
recollection of previous experience that is unintentional
Context
top-down facilitation of word and object recognition
Connectionism
Modern-day version of Hebb’s cell assembly
Sparse Neural Coding
more recent evidence suggests that the brain frequently does not use massive distributed coding across many neurons - coding in just a small subset of neurons
