Exam 4 Flashcards
Why is it difficult to understand mental imagery using only introspection?
A. People sometimes describe the same things differently
B. Peoples introspections widely vary
C. Introspection is subjective
(All the above)
The mental rotation demonstration predicts that when comparing two shapes that are in fact the same, a participant’s RT will have what type of relationship with the number of degrees the second shape is rotated from the first shape?
Linear
If it takes you one second to mentally rotate an object thirty degrees, how long will it take you to mentally rotate the same object sixty degrees?
2 seconds
A mental image could be useful for which kind of the following tasks?
A. Trying to figure out a way to fit your hair dryer in your suitcase
B. Coming up with directions to your apartment
C. Describing what your childhood home looked like
(All of the above)
While doing a mental rotation experiment like the one in the demonstration, participants will often report…
That they observe the two objects and eventually have a spontaneous insight into wether or not the two objects are the same.
Definition of CONCEPT
The mental representation of a class or individual meanings of objects, events, and abstract ideas.
Definition of CATEGORIES
Includes all exemplars of a particular concept
Definition of CLASSICAL VIEW
Necessary and sufficient features that are singly necessary and jointly sufficient to define something within a category
Problem: many things do not have uniform necessary and sufficient features to be categorized with (I.e. golf, swimming, or bowling categorized as sports)
Definition of PROTOTYPE-BASED CATEGORIZATION
- A small number of particularly good examples, which are called prototypes
- the “average” representation of a category
Birds are a category but there are many different kinds of species that act as exemplars
Definition of EXEMPLAR-BASED CATEGORIZATION
Rather than abstracting and sorting through a single prototype, people retain information about all of the individual exemplars, which are actual members of a category that they have encountered in the past.
-To determine how well an item fits into a category, it is compared to known exemplars (instances)
Definition of TYPICALITY EFFECT
Prototypical objects are processed preferentially
- processed with faster RTs
- more affected by a priming stimulus
Rule Based Theory
Rules dictate categorical membership
- birds don’t have fur
- A bay has similar features like wings but because it has fur, it is not a bird
Which methods of categorization do we use, and what are different scenarios in which one might be better than the other?
Prototype Approach -works better for larger categories Exemplar Approach -works better for small categories Rules -may override the instances and prototypes
We use a combination of rules, prototypes, and instances
What was done in the experiment done by Posner and Kelle (1968?)
What were the results of their experiment?
What was done in the related Reed (1972) experiment?
Posner & Keele:
-4 categories
-4 exemplars to each cat with minor variations between each
-Subjects tested on accuracy of categorization
-Original Exemplars: 80%
-New Exemplars: 50%
-Prototypes: 68%
Reed:
Categorize 10 faces into two cats
-accuracy for new Exemplars: 61%
-accuracy for prototypes: 90%What is family resemblance as it relates to categorization?
How is it measured?
Family Resemblance: things in a category resemble each other in a number of ways
Led psychs to believe that categorization is based on how similar an object is to some standard representation of a category
Subjects list characteristics of as many common objects as possible- objects with more overlaps of characteristics were more likely to be identified as from the same category
