exam 3 review

Question 1

Describe the Tanaka and Taylor experiment.

Answer 1

asked bird experts and nonexperts to name pictures of birds
experts used more subordinate categories than nonexperts
not everyone operates on the same level

Question 2

What did O’Craven and Kanwisher find when looking at brain scans during imagery and perception?

Answer 2

same brain areas are active when imagining and perceiving faces/objects

Question 3

What are ad hoc categories?

Answer 3

list of items that don’t seem to belong in a category together until given the context

Question 4

Define superordinate, basic, and subordinate levels

Answer 4

global (furniture, fruit)
(chair, apple) - max accuracy, little predictive power
specific (rocking chair, granny smith apple) - max predictive power, little accuracy

Question 5

What is the exemplar theory? What is a problem with it?

Answer 5

representation: all examplars of categories are stored
process: compare object to all examplars and pick category with highest overall similarity
not enough resources to store all examplars

Question 6

What is perception? What is categorization?

Answer 6

conscious experience that results from stimulation of the senses
process of putting objects into groups that belong together

Question 7

What is the representation and process of the Hierarchical Theory of Collings and Quillian? What is the problem of the relatedness effect?

Answer 7

directional links between properties and concepts (nodes)
must follow link directions, takes longer to travel longer distances
people take longer to reject a statement with shared features, but the theory says as long as something is the same distance, it shouldn’t take longer, but it does

Question 8

What is cognitive economy?

Answer 8

when properties of a category are shared by many members of a category at a higher level node
“can fly” – bird – canary

Question 9

What was Brooks experiment regarding imagery, perception and Baddeley’s working memory model?

Answer 9

shown image block letters or sentences
respond vocally or by pointing
block letter had slower RT with pointing (both occupying visuospatial sketchpad)
sentences had slower RT with vocalizing (both occupying phonological loop)
Sharing mechanisms

Question 10

What was Shapard and Metzler’s experiment?

Answer 10

pairs of 3D block figures rotated between 0-180 degrees
had to label them as same or different, looked at time it took to mentally rotate image
as degree of rotation increases, so does time
mental process is analogous to physical process of rotation (depictive)

Question 11

What did Farrah find about the mental processes for imagined and actual images when she asked participants to imagine a letter and then flashed the same target letter?

Answer 11

percent detection increased

imagery and perception share same mechanisms

Question 12

What did Nickerson and Adams find about memory and visual imagery using pennies?

Answer 12

Many people couldn’t pick the correct penny or draw it

just as in visual images, level of detail in mental images can vary

Question 13

What is the prototype theory? What is a problem with it?

Answer 13

representation: prototype (average) of each category is the only thing stored in memory
process: compare object to all stored prototypes and pick most similar
lose detail and variability

Question 14

Describe how Fink and Posner’s experiment found evidence for both depective and propositional representation.

Answer 14

used dots and arrows to find that reaction time increased as distanced increased from arrows to dots (depictive)
also possible evidence for propositional because of tasic knowledge - learned that distance takes longer, apply knowledge to task

Question 15

What did Pavio find about the picture superiority effect?

Answer 15

study word pairs by generating sentence or creating bizarre image, pictures were better remembered

Question 16

What is propositional representation?

Answer 16

sentence-like, non-spatial

Question 17

What did Tversky find about categories being fuzzy?

Answer 17

We weigh different dimensions of a stimulus depending on the context
comparing ball, moon, and candle

Question 18

What is semantic memory?

Answer 18

facts and general knowledge

Question 19

What was Tajfel and Wilkes experiment regarding categorization and perception?

Answer 19

group of lines labeled A and B, or lines not labeled at all
judge similarity between individual lines
When lines not labeled, same similarity rating than when they are labeled
when 2 items are given different labels, apparent similarity decreases, perception influences our categorization

Question 20

What did Allan and Brooks find about models of categorization?

Answer 20

we don’t use rules to make categories, we use exemplars

Question 21

What is the probalistic view of categories

Answer 21

organized around typical features (family resemblance), not defining features

Question 22

What is the typicality effect?

Answer 22

people are faster to answer questions about typical examples

Question 23

What is the picture superiority effect?

Answer 23

memory is better for pictures than words

Question 24

What did Howard and Rothbart find about labels/categorization and perception?

Answer 24

arbitrary labels change what you attend to and remember (remember more negative things about other group, and more positive things about own group)

Question 25

What did Kosslyn find for depictive representation?

Answer 25

What did Kosslyn find for depictive representation?
takes longer to scan between greater distances on an image
supports that visual imagery is spatial (depictive)

Question 26

What is the dual coding hypothesis?

Answer 26

information can be stored as verbal or visual code, but when stored as both codes, encoding is stronger

Question 27

What is the definitional approach to categories? What is the problem with it?

Answer 27

defined by rules, learn through instruction/hypothesis testing
natural categories don’t have defining features (chairs)

Question 28

What is depictive representation?

Answer 28

through pictures

Question 29

What was the Collins and Quillian experiment?

Answer 29

sentence verification task (a canary can sing, fly, has skin)
measured the amount of time it took to answer yes or no
found that the further from the node, the longer it would take to answer

Question 30

What is linear separability? What happens if there is no linear separability?

Answer 30

being able to clearly put something in a category, no overlap
When there is none, exemplar theory can make an accurate prediction

Question 31

Describe the stimuli and 3 tasks for the Posner and Keele experiment. Explain why of the tasks may support prototype or exemplar theory.

Answer 31

dot patterns
put into category A or B through feedback
recognition task (old or new) and shown prototype -- prototype had high recognition rate for old
is it an A or B -- more accurate for previously seen exemplars