Conceptual Knowledge (CH 9) Flashcards
What is Conceptual Knowledge?
- Knowledge that enables us to recognize objects & events & to make inferences about their properties
- Exists in the form of concepts
What are Concepts?
- Mental representation of class or individual
- Categories of objects, events, & abstract ideas
- Provides the rules for creating categories
How do we organize Concepts?
-In terms of Categories
What is a Category?
- Includes all possible examples of a particular concept
- Pointers to knowledge
- Helps us understand behaviors
What is Categorization?
- Process by which things are placed in categories
- Helps us understand what is happening in the environment & plays role in helping us take action
- It becomes more difficult when we encounter something unfamiliar
What approach of categorization does not work?
-The Definitional approach bc it doesn’t work well for natural objects (birds, trees) & human-made objects (chairs)
What is the basis of Definitional Approach to Categorization?
- We can decide whether something is a member of a category by determining whether a particular object meets the definition of the category
- This approach works well for geometric shapes
What is Family Resemblance?
- Proposed by Wittgenstein to solve the problems of definitions not including all members of a category
- Refers to the idea that things in a particular category resemble one another in a number of ways= allows for more variation
What is the Prototype approach to Categorization?
-Membership in a category is determined by comparing the object to a prototype that represents the category
What is a Prototype?
-A typical member of the category= AVERAGE representation of a category (NOT actual member of category)
What is Typicality?
- Variations within categories
- Can be Low or High typicality
What is High Typicality?
-The category member CLOSELY resembles the category prototype (like a typical member of the category)
What is Low Typicality?
-The category member DOES NOT closely resemble a typical member of the category
How do we determine a good example for a category?
-When an object shares MANY attributes with other members of its category
What is the Sentence Verification Technique?
- It’s used to determine how rapidly people could answer questions about an object’s category
- Participants are presented w/ various statements & agree whether that the statement is true or not
- Concluded that particpants responded faster to for objects that are high in prototypicality (apple is a fruit vs pomagranate is a fruit)
What is the Typicality Effect?
-Ability to judge highly prototypical objects more rapidly (apple is a fruit= faster response than pomegranate is a fruit)
How does Priming occur?
-When the presentation of a stimulus facilitates the response of a stimulus that following closely behind the first one
What is the Exemplar Approach to Categorization?
- It involves determining whether an object is similar to other objects but involves MANY examples= exemplar
- Explains the typicality effect by proposing that objects that are more like the exemplars are classified faster
What are Exemplars?
-Actual members of the category that a person has encountered in the past
(labs, pugs, & boxers as exemplars for dogs)
What are the advantages of the Exemplar Approach to Categorization?
- Uses real examples= can easily take into account atypical cases= doesn’t discard info that may be useful later
- Can deal with more variable categories like games
How might we use both the Exemplar Approach & the Prototype Approach to Categorization?
- When we initially learn about a category, we may average exemplars into a prototype & as we continue to learn, some of the exemplar info becomes stronger
- Early in learning we would be poor at taking into account “exceptions” to a category (penguins/ ostriches)
What is Hierarchical Organization?
-When larger, more general categories are divided into smaller, more specific categories= creating levels & number of categories
What are the 3 different levels of categories?
Superordinate/ Global Level (furniture)= has 3 common features
Basic level/ reflects everyday experience (table)= has 9 common features
Subordinate/Specific level (kitchen table)= has 10.3 common features
How can knowledge affect categorization?
- People with more knowledge about certain objects tend to focus on more specific info about the objects
- Categorization is learned from experience and the objects that we typically encounter & what characteristics of these objects we pay attention to
What is the Semantic Network Approach?
- Proposes that concepts are arranged in networks
- It is a hierarchical model bc it consists of levels arranged so that more specific concepts (canary) are at the bottom & general concepts are at higher levels (bird–> animal–>living thing)
What is Cognitive Economy?
-Efficient way of storing shared properties just once in the higher level node in the Semantic Network Approach
(Feathers or can fly won’t have its individual node bc most birds have these characteristics & it takes up too much space)
-When an object has an exception then it would be indicated