Integration module: semantic memory Flashcards
Why is encyclopedia of memory bad metaphor for semantic memory?
Because it suggests that specific facts are stored in specific locations
How to represent knowledge in more predictive way?
Network representations of semantic memory (inspired by AI) - different nodes represent different concepts, arrows illustrate flow of information
What did Groot find in his research on chess players?
Experts in chess are not faster at thinking - they just have huge array of already existing games which come to mind
What is Collins and Quilian model?
It is hierarchical network model in which lower nodes don’t connect directly to higher nodes. Highest node may be an animal, then medium may breach into birds and fish. Lower nodes may represent different species of birds and fish
Why hierarchical model is limited?
Because it cannot account for typically effect (robin is a bird will elicit faster reaction type because those words are frequently associated with each other). It is therefore not that important that we need to travel through different levels.
How did hierarchical model end up being modified by Collins and Loftus?
Network became ‘‘flat’’ - everything started to be connected with everything else. Nodes which are directly related are resulting in faster reaction time.
What is associative primine?
there is no semantic connection between words, but they co-occur together
What is the effect found in semantic priming?
People are faster to say that ‘‘robin’’ is a word, if they were previously primed with ‘‘bird’’ prime.
Why is the priming paradigm more complex?
Because it is about manipulation of expectations and rule learning! For example if you prime participants with body parts and then they need to react to houses, if this is what they expect (category shift), they will still show faster reaction time.
What did Posner and Keele found in their studies on how humans form categories?
Brain tends to extract prototype from the dot patterns unconsciously. Subsequently, when people judge if dots belong to the same category, they evaluate how much distortion from the prototype occured. Small distortion results in labeling dots pattern in the same category.
What is interesting about formation of prototypes by amnesia patients?
Amnesia patients can learn to form categories, despite not remembering dot patterns. However, they cannot recognize style of the painters. It makes sense as painting learning requires them to being ‘‘kept’’ in the memory
What did sir Frederic Bartlett discover in his research on memory?
Students were required to remember story from Native American culture. Upon further retrieval they reconstructed the story. It suggests that personal background affects recall.
What are schemas?
semantic memory structures that help people organize new information they encounter; in addition they may help a person reconstruct bits and pieces of memories that have been forgotten
What happened in re-drawing experiment?
Subjects encountered different descriptions of pictures they needed to re-draw later. Subsequently, they based their re-drawing on the descriptions - not on what was actually presented in the picture.
What did Brewer and Treyens found?
Subjects were asked to wait in the office until study began. Then they needed to remember what was in the office. The experimental manipulation was the sentence ‘‘tell me what was in this typical academic office’’. This activated schema of typical academic office and people reported typical things which can be found in the office, not what was really in the room.
