Chapter 7 Semantic Memory Flashcards
Tulving
Brain damage affects semantic memory less than episodic
Retrograde amnesia leaves semantic memories intact except knowledge acquired shortly before onset of amnesia
Semantic dementia associated with damage to anterior frontal temporal lobes
Amnesia usually medial temporal lobe
Burianova
Same neural network active during episodic, semantic, autobio retrieval
Kan
Task involving only episodic memory also involved semantic memory
Organization of concepts
Giving category first and initial letter after faster than reverse
Easier to activate category in preparation
Novice psychology students had no diff between category of psychologist or guessing name first - older fast when category first
Hierarchical network model
Collins
Waste of space to have info about being able to fly stored w every bird name
Canary, yellow stored at same level of hierarchy
“A canary can fly” should take longer because the concept and property are separated by one level in hierarchy
Depends on familiarity - when familiarity controlled, distance between subject and property had little effect on time
Verification times faster for more typical members of category - typicality effect
Categories loosely determined - Collins wrong - and fuzzy
Verheyen
2 reasons why individual differences decide which items belong to category
Ambiguity - different criteria for categorization
Vagueness - individuals may use different cut-offs to separate members from non - how strenuous must sport be?
Spreading activation model
Collins again
To deal with inflexibility of hierarchical model
Length of links between 2 concepts indicates degree of semantic relatedness between them
Red closer to orange than sunsets
Red links faster with roses than flowers
More specificity = faster
When doctor connected with nurse, hospital then not presented on recog test, doctor should be highly activated because of closeness
Brain activation similar when subjects falsely recognized missing word and when correctly recognized it on list
Dell’s speech production theory
Uses spreading activation
Speech errors occur when incorrect word is more activated than correct one
Problems with spreading activation
No concept is represented by single node
Model implies each concept has single, fixed representation:
Fred greatly enjoyed playing the piano
Fred found it difficult to lift the piano
Rosch
3 levels
Superordinate categories (furniture)
Basic (chair)
Subordinate (easy chair)
We usually use basic because it balances informativeness and distinctiveness (lacking at either level)
Experts use sub
Faces use sub
Superordinate levels are faster - less info processing
Concepts
Abstract in nature, detached from sensory and motor processes
Stable
Similar between people
Barsalou argued for bicycle aspects activated by goals
Can involve perception - lawn focuses on external properties, sod focuses on internal (dirt, soil)
Half watermelon: pips, red
Influenced by context
Barsalou exaggerates extent concept processing varies across situations, and there are several possible interpretations of the finding that concept processing typically involves perceptual and/or motor features
Hub and spoke model
Patterson
Spokes are modality-specific brain areas in which sensory and motor processing occur
Spokes: visual features, verbal descriptors, olfaction, sounds, motor, soma
Each concept has a hub
Each hub in anterior temporal lobes
Dementia lose hubs
Activated temp lobe areas in semantic tasks far away from perceptual and motor processing areas
Mayberry
Frontal lobes and semantic dementia
Hub and spokes
Category task to dementia patients
Dementia causes blurring of boundary separating members of category from nonmembers
Would cause prediction probs for atypical members and noncategory members resembling members (butterfly/bird)
Spokes of hub and spokes
Common type of deficit involves greater difficulty id pictures of living than nonliving things
Living things have greater overlap
Cree: 7 patterns of deficits follow brain damage: most impaired colour, taste, smell, visual motion, function
Hub and spoke
TMS
Pobric
With TMS, ant temp lobe or inferior parietal lobe inhibited naming living things, manipulable objects, nonmanipulable man-made things
On ant temp lobe, increased time for all three categories
On inferior parietal, should increase time only for manipulable objects and not nonmanipulable or living things
