Chapter 9 - Knowledge

Question 1

Define conceptual knowledge

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Fundamental unit of symbolic knowledge is the _______.

Answer 2

-concept

Question 3

Define concept

Answer 3

-an idea about something that gives us some understanding of the world (cat for ex)

Question 4

We use concepts to: (3)

Answer 4

-make inferences
-combine to form complex thoughts (schemas)
-communication

Question 5

What are concepts organized into?

Answer 5

-categories

Question 6

Apple can be both a ______ or a ____________.

Answer 6

-concept; category

Question 7

What are the four different types of categories? (4)

Answer 7

-natural
-artifact
-ad hoc
-nominal kind

Question 8

What are natural categories?

Answer 8

-occur naturally, trees, plants, cats

Question 9

What are artifact categories?

Answer 9

-created by humans; hammers, computers

Question 10

What are ad hoc categories?

Answer 10

-created individually to suit a need, things you need to be happy

Question 11

What are nominal categories?

Answer 11

-arbitrary assignment of a label to an entity that meets a set of conditions, like the concept of a triangle

Question 12

Categories are considered to be the _______ to __________.

Answer 12

-pointers to knowledge
-they give a lot of information, like if something is a fruit, we know certain things about it

Question 13

What is the definitional approach to categorization? (2)

Answer 13

-all examples of a category share features that define their category
-Disassembles a concept into a set of featural components.

Question 14

Features represented in the definitional approach to categorization include what?

Answer 14

-features represented in a category are individually necessary and collectively necessary

Question 15

What does it mean for a feature to be individually necessary? Example. (2)

Answer 15

-Each feature is required for something to belong to the category
-to be a “triangle,” an object must have three sides

Question 16

What does it mean for a feature to be collectively necessary? Example? (2)

Answer 16

-All the features together are enough to define the category
-having three sides, being closed, and having straight edges defines a triangle

Question 17

A defining feature is a necessary attribute. What does this mean?

Answer 17

-to belong to category X, the object must have that feature

Question 18

What are the problems with the definitional approach to categorization? (2)

Answer 18

-some categories don’t fit well with defining features (chair could be a bean bag or your classic)
-difficult to specify necessary features of some concepts (what is necessary to define a chair? does it need to have four legs)

Question 19

What is the family resemblance view? (2)

Answer 19

-things in a category resemble one another in a number of ways
-all of the pictures could be a chair

Question 20

What is the prototype approach to categorization?

Answer 20

-categories formed on the basis of a prototypical (average) model of the category

Question 21

Prototype approach supports ideas of characteristic features. What are these?

Answer 21

-features that are typical but not necessary (most birds can fly but not all birds)

Question 22

According to the prototype approach, the more characteristic features present the more what?

Answer 22

-it is regarded more as a member of that category

Question 23

A member that has high prototypically means what?

Answer 23

-they closely resembles category prototype (sparrow)

Question 24

What does it mean if they have low prototypically what does this mean?

Answer 24

-category member does not closely resemble category prototype (penguin)

Question 25

There is a strong positive relationship between prototypically and what?

Answer 25

-family resemblance approach

Question 26

When items have a large amount of overlap with characteristics of other items in the category, the family resemblance of these items is _____?

Answer 26

-high

Question 27

With the prototype approach, we see the typicality effect. What is it?

Answer 27

-prototypical objects are categorized faster (you would judge a sparrow faster)

Question 28

What is one way we measure typicality effect?

Answer 28

-sentence verification technique, you give people different sentences and the participant has to say if it was true or false (an apple is a fruit, T/F?)

Question 29

The typicality effect is affected by what? (2)

Answer 29

-priming
-if you hear the word “green” you will respond to a prototypical green colour swatch faster

Question 30

What is the exemplar approach?

Answer 30

-represented by multiple examples, your own examples

Question 31

How does categorization occur in the exemplar approach?

Answer 31

-you compare the new item to stored examples

Question 32

How is the exemplar approach similar to the prototype view?

Answer 32

-categorizing is based on similarity rather than a definition or exactness

Question 33

What is different between the exemplar and prototype view?

Answer 33

-not based on what an abstract average would be (like an average bird) but a specific example you have encountered

Question 34

What does the Exemplar Approach explain well?

Answer 34

-the typicality effect, accounts for atypical cases, and handles variable categories effectively.

Question 35

When are prototypes and exemplars typically used?

Answer 35

-Prototypes are used early in learning for larger categories, while exemplars help refine categories by accounting for exceptions in smaller categories`

Question 36

What are the three levels of categories in hierarchical organization?

Answer 36

-Superordinate (general), Basic (common), and Subordinate (specific).

Question 37

Why is the basic level of categories considered special?

Answer 37

• It is most commonly used in naming, quickly identified, and learned earlier by children (you tell a child to sit in the “chair” not the “armchair” for example)

Question 38

What are examples of the levels of categories?

Answer 38

-Superordinate: “Furniture”
-Basic: “Chair,”
-Subordinate: “Rocking Chair.”

Question 39

How do basic-level categories differ in communication?

Answer 39

-They are more frequent in adult discourse and consistent across cultures, especially for living things.

Question 40

How does greater experience affect categorization? (Example) (2)

Answer 40

• It leads to greater specificity, allowing for the use of subordinate categories.
  -For example, someone who has a lot of experience with dogs would probably be able to describe the dogs and use words that were more specific (subordinate) than someone with less information

Question 41

What is the primary function of nodes in the hierarchical model?

Answer 41

-Nodes represent categories or concepts and are linked to show how information is organized in the mind.

Question 42

What is the “special level” of categorization?

Answer 42

-It varies depending on experience and knowledge of the category.

Question 43

What is the hierarchical model proposed by Collins and Quillian (1969)?

Answer 43

-A model that looks like a network or web where concepts are related to each other with lines and the concepts higher up will be more broad categories and the concepts lower down will be more specific categories
-Node for “Dog” is linked to “Animal” because a dog is a type of animal.

Question 44

A node is a what? (2)

Answer 44

-category concept
-Node for “Dog” represents the concept of a dog.

Question 45

What is cognitive economy in the hierarchical model? Example? (2)

Answer 45

-Shared properties are only stored at higher-level nodes to avoid repetition.
-Example: “Has four legs” is stored at the Animal node, so you don’t need to store it separately for every animal, including dogs.

Question 46

How are concepts linked in the Hierarchical Model?

Answer 46

-Concepts are connected by links that show relationships between them.
Example: Dog is linked to Mammal (because dogs are mammals), and Mammal is linked to Animal (because mammals are animals).

Question 47

How does the Hierarchical Model handle exceptions?

Answer 47

Exceptions are stored at lower-level nodes.
Example: Penguin is an exception to the rule “birds can fly,” so it has the property “cannot fly” stored at the Penguin node.

Question 48

What is “inheritance” in the Hierarchical Model?

Answer 48

-Lower-level concepts inherit properties from higher-level concepts.
Example: A Dog inherits the property “has legs” from the higher-level category Animal because all animals have legs.

Question 49

What is the sentence verification task in the Hierarchical Model? Example (2)

Answer 49

-A task where participants indicate if a statement is true or false, and their reaction time is measured.
-Statement: “Salmon are pink.”
-Participants answer “True” and the reaction time is measured based on how quickly they respond.

Question 50

How does the Hierarchical Model explain reaction time in sentence verification tasks?

Answer 50

-The more links you have to travel through in the hierarchy, the longer it takes to verify a sentence.

Question 51

What is spreading activation in semantic networks? (Which occurs during hierarchical categorization). What does this explain? Example. (3)

Answer 51

-process where activating one node causes activity to spread to all linked nodes, making related concepts easier to access
-this explains priming
-Example: Activating the node for “dog” might spread activation to linked nodes like “animal,” “pet,” or “tail.”

Question 52

: What does “activation” mean in the context of semantic networks?

Answer 52

-Activation refers to the arousal level of a node, which increases when the node is accessed or primed.
Example: When you think about “dog,” the “dog” node becomes activated and has a higher arousal level.

Question 53

What did Myer and Schvaneveldt (1971) demonstrate in their study? Example? (2)

Answer 53

-Spreading activation in semantic networks: they showed that reaction times are faster for closely associated word pairs
-Example: Closely associated pairs: “Bread” and “Butter”

Question 54

What is a criticism of the Collins and Quillian hierarchical model?

Answer 54

-The model cannot explain typicality effects, where reaction times are faster for statements about more typical members of a category.
Example: Typical member: “A robin is a bird” RT is faster than an “ostrich is a bird” even though they are at the same level on the hierarchy so should be the same RT

Question 55

What is the criticism regarding “cognitive economy” in Collins and Quillian’s model?

Answer 55

-The model assumes that shared properties are stored at higher-level nodes, but people may actually store specific properties at the concept node itself.
Example: Instead of storing “has skin” at the higher-level “Animal” node, people might store it directly under “Dog” to account for specific properties of individual concepts.

Question 56

What is the problem with the Semantic Network Model based on sentence verification results?

Answer 56

-The model predicts that more general concepts (like “Animal”) should take longer to verify, but reaction times were faster for verifying “A pig is a animal” than “A pig is an mammal,” which contradicts the model’s predictions.

Question 57

Use an example of a beagle to describe the basic, superordinate and general.

Answer 57

Superordinate: animal
Basic: dog
Subordinate (specific): beagle

Question 58

At the basic level, when you compare items like a table with other tables, how many features do they have in common?

Answer 58

-9

Question 59

Your greatest gain in information is when you move from the _____ level to the _____ level.

Answer 59

-superordinate (global); basic