Key theories of categorisation (semantic memory) Flashcards
What is exemplar?
particular instance of a category
What is a category?
group of objects that have something in common
What is a concept?
mental representation of a category of objects
What is the common features approach?
Categories tend to be loose and fuzzy with a zone of gradual transition between many related concepts (McClosekey + Glusberg 1978)
What is a graded membership?
Some items are more typical of a category than others
What is family resemblance?
Category members typically share a set of common features but not all common features are present in all members
What is correlated attributes?
Certain features tend to go together or show a relationship but not all members share the same features
What is the categorisation of hierarchal view?
categorisation reduces within group differences as well as predicting other features from knowing one property
What did Rosch et al (1976) argue about hierarchies?
There are three levels
- more difficult to describe but easier to categorise
- usual level best balance
- more difficult to give distinctive descriptions
What is the spreading activation theory?
Knowledge is organised by semantic similarity and semantic distance
What is semantic distance?
Number of steps connecting two concepts
Who created the spreading activation theory?
Collins and Loftus
What is grounded cognition?
Process concepts in different settings and with different goals
Cognition is grounded on perceptual and motor systems
Who created the idea of grounded cognition?
Barsalou (2012)
What is the hub and spoke model?
Mix of fixed, traditional views of context dependent view and of grounded cognition
Concepts have a stable core and concept processing is context dependent
What are spokes?
Modality specific brain regions involving sensory and motor processing
What is the hub?
Integrates different representations into conceptual knowledge
Where is the hub located?
Anterior temporal lobes
What is semantic dementia?
Semantic memory is impaired but other mental abilities are intact
What knowledge degrades first in semantic dementia?
Specific knowledge
What happens to the hub in semantic dementia?
It is lost and leads to a blurring of boundaries relating to concepts
What happened in the repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation study for the hub and spoke model?
Brain lesions were stimulated and in the anterior temporal lobe naming pictures was slowed and in the inferior parietal lobe, naming was slowed for manipulable objects only
What is a schema?
Superordinate knowledge structures that reflect abstracted commonalities across multiple experiences
What are scripts?
Schemas containing information about sequences of events
What conclusion was drawn from schemas?
Information from schemas can influence our episodic memory and expectations
What happens if we reduce the amount of information to be processed?
We become inflexible
Where is the damage in frontotemporal dementia?
Prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes
What difficulties are there with frontotemporal dementia?
Planning and there are more sequencing errors in scripts
