Chapter 9: Conceptual knowledge

Question 1

Conceptual knowledge

Answer 1

knowledge that enables us to recognize objects and events, and to make inferences about their properties

Question 2

Concepts

Answer 2

the mental representation of a class or an individual; categories of events, objects, and abstract ideas

Question 3

Category

Answer 3

a set of all possible examples of a particular concept

Question 4

Definitional approach to categorization

Answer 4

we decide if an object is a member of a category if it meets the category’s definition

Question 5

Limitations of the definitional approach

Answer 5

(1) not all members of categories share the same defining features, (2) it is computationally intense to match objects on many feature dimensions

Question 6

Family resemblance

Answer 6

members of a category resemble one another in a number of ways; allows for some variation within a category

Question 7

Prototype approach to categorization

Answer 7

membership in a category is determined by comparing the object to a prototype that represents the category

Question 8

How is a prototype formed?

Answer 8

averaging together the common instances of a category to get the typical member

Question 9

Typicality

Answer 9

a member’s extent of resemblance from the category’s prototype

Question 10

When is family resemblance of objects high?

Answer 10

when there is a large overlap between their characteristics or when they are more prototypical

Question 11

Sentence verification technique

Answer 11

participants identify if statements are true or false to determine how rapidly they can categorize objects

Question 12

Typicality effect

Answer 12

the ability to judge highly prototypical objects more rapidly

Question 13

Priming

Answer 13

when presentation of one stimulus facilitates the response to another stimulus that usually follows closely in time

Question 14

Why is priming more helpful when stimuli is more prototypical of the prime category?

Answer 14

priming leads participants to create images of prototypes that facilitate their response to the highly prototypical stimulus

Question 15

Exemplar approach to categorization

Answer 15

determining whether an object is similar to examples or actual members of a category called exemplars

Question 16

2 advantages of exemplar approach

Answer 16

can more easily (1) account for categories with loose or atypical members and (2) deal with categories that are hard to average

Question 17

Hierarchical organization

Answer 17

large, general categories are divided into smaller, more specific categories in which any object can fit into several categories

Question 18

3 levels of categories (Rosch)

Answer 18

superordinate or global level, basic level, and subordinate or specific level

Question 19

Why is the basic level of categories psychologically special?

Answer 19

going above it (global level) results in a large loss of information and going below it (specific level) results in little gain of information

Question 20

Semantic network approach

Answer 20

concepts are arranged in hierarchical networks that consist of nodes, which each represent a category or concept, that are connected by links and have distinct properties; a process model so it doesn’t mirror physiology

Question 21

Cognitive economy

Answer 21

shared properties are only stored at higher-level nodes to avoid redundancy and exceptions are stored at lower nodes

Question 22

Spreading activation

Answer 22

activation of one node spreads to other connected nodes, priming and facilitating their retrieval

Question 23

Limitations of Collins & Quillian’s semantic network approach

Answer 23

(1) doesn’t explain typicality effect, rather proposes that both typical and atypical members result in equal reaction times; (2) uncommon nodes are skipped and don’t benefit from spreading activation

Question 24

Connectionist approach

Answer 24

computer models (i.e. parallel distributed processing models) are created to represent cognitive processes and mimic the way brains work

Question 25

What are units in a connectionist network?

Answer 25

they represent concepts and their properties and, like neurons, are connected by patterns of activity that are each assigned a weight

Question 26

Connection weight

Answer 26

degree to which the next unit is activated or inhibited

Question 27

Input units

Answer 27

units activated by stimuli from the environment or stimuli presented by the experimenter; send signals to hidden units, which send signals to output units

Question 28

What 2 things do activation of units in a network depend on?

Answer 28

(1) the signal that originates in the input units and (2) the connection weights throughout the network

Question 29

Back propagation

Answer 29

erroneous responses in property units cause an error signal to be send back through the network to provide information about how connection weights should be adjusted

Question 30

Graceful degradation

Answer 30

disruption of performance in connectionist networks due to brain damage occurs only gradually because concepts are distributed across many units

Question 31

How does connectionism explain the generalization of learning?

Answer 31

training a system to recognize properties of one concept also provides information about related concepts due to similar patterns of activation

Question 32

Category-specific memory impairment

Answer 32

loss of ability to identify one type of object but but retained the ability to identify other types of objects (e.g. animals and non-animals)

Question 33

Sensory-functional hypothesis

Answer 33

our ability to differentiate living things and artifacts depends on a memory system that distinguishes sensory attributes and another that distinguishes functions

Question 34

Multiple-factor approach

Answer 34

factors beyond sensory and functional distinguish concepts within a category

Question 35

What objects are associated with both performed actions and sensory properties?

Answer 35

musical instruments and some mechanical devices

Question 36

Crowding

Answer 36

difficulty recognizing living things is due to difficulty distinguishing between the similar features that animals share, not due to category-specific impairment

Question 37

Semantic category approach

Answer 37

semantic categories are mapped to distinct brain networks or neural circuits and are distributed over a number of cortical areas

Question 38

Embodied approach

Answer 38

our knowledge of concepts is based on reactivation of areas responsible for the sensory and motor processes that occur when we interact with an object

Question 39

Semantic somatotopy

Answer 39

the correspondence between the location of brain activity activated by reading words related to specific parts of the body and actual movements

Question 40

Criticisms for embodied approach

Answer 40

(1) contrary to what it predicts, ability to represent motor activity associated with actions is not necessary for recognizing objects; (2) not well suited to explaining knowledge of abstract concepts

Question 41

Semantic dementia

Answer 41

general loss of knowledge for all concepts with an equal deficit for both living things and artifacts due to damage in the anterior temporal lobe

Question 42

Hub and spoke of semantic knowledge

Answer 42

areas of the brain that are associated with specific functions (spokes) are connected to the ATL, which serves as a hub that integrates information from these areas

Question 43

What deficits are caused by damage to spokes vs the hub?

Answer 43

damage to specialized brain areas/spokes cause domain-specific conceptual deficits while damage to the ATL causes general deficits (semantic dementia) as seen in TMS studies