chapter nine Flashcards
conceptual knowledge
helps with recognition and generating inferences
concepts
mental representations of an object, event, or idea
category
examples of concepts that are grouped together
categorization
process of building a category
approaches to categorization
1) definition approach
2) family resemblance
3) prototype approach
4) exemplar approach
definitional approach
- categorization based on definition of the category
- each member of a category needs to meet the same criteria
- i.e. “a square is a plane figure having four equal sides…”
family resemblance
- categorization of objects based on ways they resemble each other
- each feature of objects within a category do not need to match
prototype approach
- categorization based on similarity with a prototype
- typicality effect: faster to verify prototypical members as belonging to a category than non-prototypical members
exemplar approach
- categorization based on the greatest similarity between an item in a category and the novel item (see if it matches an item within that category)
- drawback: too many exemplars in a category makes the comparison very time consuming
rosch’s hierarchical organization
1) global/superordinate category
2) basic-level category
3) subordinate category
superordinate category
- top of the hierarchy
- too broad
- can’t generate a prototype at this level
basic-level category
- middle of the hierarchy
- often first words learned
- categories are most differentiated at this level
- items within the basic-level category are similar (i.e. guitar and drums)
- items in different basic-level categories are dissimilar (i.e. guitar vs. apple)
subordinate category
- bottom of the hierarchy
which level is categorization the fastest?
- at the basic-level category
- there is an exception; i.e. if you are a dog trainer and know all breeds of dogs, you can categorize in the subordinate categories quicker, like different dog breeds
collins and quillian’s semantic network model
- hierarchical model
- explains the organization of semantic knowledge but goes one step further
- concepts are represented as “nodes”
- concepts are connected to related concepts through “links”
- retrieval of concepts involves spreading activation
activation
- anything that is similar to the original concept is activated with it
characteristics of semantic network models
- direction of movement is from the bottom to the top
- semantic facilitation occurs when the semantic path was just used
- accounts for the category-size effect
category-size effect
- faster to classify items that are part of a small category than a large category
- items at the bottom of the hierarchy
limitations of semantic networks
- can’t explain the typicality effect: typical members of a category are classified
more quickly than less typical members ( i.e. “a penguin is a bird” vs. “a canary is a bird”) - classification speed is not always dependent on amount of level changes (i.e. “a chimpanzee is a primate” is only one level change = slow RT vs. “a chimpanzee is an animal” is two level changes = faster RT)
connectionist model
- concepts are represented as “units”
- connection weight of each unit determines the activation or inhibition of a signal
- back propagation: you can move forwards and backwards with these nodes
representing concepts in the brain
- sensory-functional hypothesis
- multiple-factor approach
- semantic category approach
- embodied approach
sensory-functional hypothesis
we identify living things based on sensory features and nonliving things based on their function
multiple-factor approach
we identify living and nonliving things based on sensory features such as features, function, motion, colour
semantic category approach
neural circuits are associated with specific categories
