Chapter 9 Conceptual Knowledge Flashcards
Anterior temporal lobe (ATL)
Area in the temporal lobe. Damage to the ATL has been connected with semantic deficits in dementia patients and with the savant syndrome.
Back propagation
A process by which learning can occur in a connectionist network, in which an error signal is transmitted backward through the network. This backward-transmitted error signal provides the information needed to adjust the weights in the network to achieve the correct output signal for a stimulus.
Basic level
In Rosch’s categorization scheme, the level below the global (superordinate) level (e.g., “table” or “chair” for the superordinate category “furniture”). According to Rosch, the basic level is psychologically special because it is the level above which much information is lost and below which little is gained.
Categorization
The process by which objects are placed in categories.
Category
Groups of objects that belong together because they belong to the same class of objects, such as “houses,” “furniture,” or “schools.”
Category-specific memory impairment
A result of brain damage in which the patient has trouble recognizing objects in a specific category.
Cognitive economy
A feature of some semantic network models in which properties of a category that are shared by many members of a category are stored at a higher-level node in the network. For example, the property “can fly” would be stored at the node for “bird” rather than at the node for “canary.”
Concept
A mental representation of a class or individual. Also, the meaning of objects, events, and abstract ideas. An example of a concept would be the way a person mentally represents “cat” or “house.”
Conceptual knowledge
Knowledge that enables people to recognize objects and events and to make inferences about their properties.
Connection weight
In connectionist models, a connection weight determines the degree to which signals sent from one unit either increase or decrease the activity of the next unit.
Connectionism
A network model of mental operation that proposes that concepts are represented in networks that are modeled after neural networks. This approach to describing the mental representation of concepts is also called the parallel distributed processing (PDP) approach.
Connectionist network
The type of network proposed by the connectionist approach to the representation of concepts. Connectionist networks are based on neural networks but are not necessarily identical to them. One of the key properties of a connectionist network is that a specific category is represented by activity that is distributed over many units in the network. This contrasts with semantic networks, in which specific categories are represented at individual nodes.
Crowding
Animals tend to share many properties, such as eyes, legs, and the ability to move. This is relevant to the multiple-factor approach to the representation of concepts in the brain.
Definitional approach to categorization
The idea that we can decide whether something is a member of a category by determining whether the object meets the definition of the category.
Embodied approach
Proposal that our knowledge of concepts is based on reactivation of sensory and motor processes that occur when we interact with an object.
Error signal
During learning in a connectionist network, the difference between the output signal generated by a particular stimulus and the output that actually represents that stimulus.
Exemplar
In categorization, members of a category that a person has experienced in the past.
Exemplar approach to categorization
The approach to categorization in which members of a category are judged against exemplars—examples of members of the category that the person has encountered in the past.
