Knowledge Flashcards
What is a Concept? What part of memory is it in?
Your knowledge about a particular thing or event; a unit of knowledge in semantic memory
What is the core of everything you know?
Concepts
Why are people’s Concepts different? What influences them?
Elaboration
Are Concepts connected to many different features?
Yes!
What type of memory is a “Concept” stored in?
Semantic Memory
Give an example of a Concept
A chair has a seat, back, 4 legs, and is something you can sit on
What is a Category?
A group of related concepts
What type of memory is a Category stored in?
Semantic Memory
Give an example of a Category
Dining room chairs and living room chairs are both part of the chair category
Define Categorization; where does place the information?
The process of assigning a new piece of information to either a Concept or Category
What are three reasons that Categories are helpful
Identifying Objects, allowing us to ignore variability between objects in a group, and reducing the need for constant learning
How do Categories help us identify objects?
They confine recognition to a smaller group of items, thereby making it faster and more accurate
Give an example of how Categories help us to identify objects
Prof narrowing down “half inch monkey wrench” by knowing it’s not the hammers or screwdrivers, and seeing what’s left
How do Categories allow us to ignore the variability between objects in a group?
They capture the essential features of that object’s pattern; allowing us to ignore non-essential variability
Give two examples of how Categories help us to ignore variability between groups
We know that they’re all “A”s because they all have the essential features of one, even when they’re in a different font–Also even though we can discriminate between 7 million colors we only use 7-10 main names(we can ignore subtle differences)
How do Categories reduce our need for constant learning?–In simple terms
We don’t need to be explicitly taught about every object in the world because we can recognize that object based on its similarity to an existing category
What does Categorization free us from?
The need to encode the detailed features and properties of each new object, we simply encode that object as another member of one of our categories (this thing is so similar to the old things I’ve seen before, so I’ll encode not as a new thing, but as an example of the other old things)
What’s an example of not having to learn everything because of Categorization?–Why is this an example?
Seeing something small with a fuzzy tail running up a tree–so you put it in the “squirrel” Category–No need for someone to tell you that it’s in the squirrel family
What are the cons of Categorization?
It’s responsible for a lot of memory errors and memory distortions
What is an example of a Memory Distortion as introduced through Categorization?
By categorizing an animal as a sort of squirrel, it inherits all of the “squirrel” properties–So you might remember it having a bushy tail even if it didn’t
What is the difference between a memory error and a memory distortion?
A memory error is a mistake in recalling (misattribution or recalling details that didn’t occur)–in this is memory distortion(creating false memories/changes memory)
What are three ways that Categorization is studied?
Definitional Approach, Prototype Approach, and Family Resemblance
What is the Definitional Approach?
Defining the minimal criteria that an object must have to be included in a category
What is an example of the Definitional Approach?
A “plane” must have an engine, wings, and be able to fly (no engine, glider; no wings, rocket)
What is an example of the problem with the Definitional Approach?
What defines a chair? They can look very different!
What is Family Resemblance in Categorization?
Members of a category are similar to each other in a large number of ways; but any one way is not usually essential
What is Categorization based on in Family Resemblance?
The similarity between the new object and the members of each existing category
Why do people find the Family Resemblance Approach a little implausible for Categorization?
You would need to do a lot of comparisons to compute the Family Resemblance/how similar they are in a feature space–and we can categorize very fast! So doing all these comparisons seems unlikely
Define the Prototype Approach
New objects are compared to each Category’s Prototype–objects being classified based on the best match
How is the Prototype Approach different from the Family Resemblance method?
The Prototype Approach is only comparing something to each prototype/representative for a category; while the Family Resemblance method compares something to each member in every category
What is a Prototype?
The “average” of a Category’s members (“about this big with clawed feet and a beak”)
Are Prototypes a member of a Category?
No! It’s an average of them, not any specific one
Do Prototypes change?
Yes, often! Every new exemplar encountered/object added into a Category changes it!
Does a Prototype change equally as much in a Category with a small amount of members and one with a large amount of members?
No! It’s like math, the less there are the more impact each member will have on the Prototype
Define High Prototypicality
An object that matches the prototype well/similarly
Define Low Prototypicality
An object that doesn’t match the prototype well
What is an example of a High and Low Prototypical bird?
High: Hummingbird
Low: Duck
What are some techniques in studying Prototypicality?
Object Naming, Prototype Priming, Feature Overlap Analysis, and a Category Verification Task
What is the Object Naming technique of studying Prototypicality? What are subjects asked to do?
Subjects are asked to name members of a given category
What was a finding in the Object Naming Technique?
Typical members/ones of High Prototypicality were named before less typical members (Robins, sparrows…penguins?)
What happened in the Prototype Priming(Rosch, 1975) technique?
They primed subjects with a color name and then asked them to respond whether two colors were the same or different (“green” and then showed them an average green, light green, and a red-blue pair)
What was a finding in the Prototype Priming(Rosch, 1975) technique?
The Reaction Times(RTs) were faster when the color matched the primed protype (took them longer to say that the two light greens were the same)
Why were the RTs longer for the less Prototypical greens in the Prototype Priming(Rosch, 1975) technique?
What happened in the Feature Overlap Analysis?
Subjects listed attributed for several objects under a Category, then the experimenter determined which objects have attributes in common; the more the more typicality
What are some examples of the Feature Overlap Analysis?
Cars have lots of attributes in common with others in the “vehicle” Category; while elevators do not(bad example of the vehicle Category; no wheels, etc…)
What happened in the Category Verification Task (Smith et al., 1974)?
Subjects would see/hear a category name and then would be shown a picture of an object–the task would be to indicate as quickly as possible if the object was a member of that Category
What was a finding in the Category Verification Task (Smith et al., 1974)?
Reaction Times(RTs) were faster for objects rated as highly typical of a Category–compared to ones ranked as less typical
What is one reason that RTs longer for less typical members in the Category Verification Task (Smith et al., 1974)?
We come in contact with the Prototypical members more
What are the levels in the Hierarchical Organization of Categories (Rosch et al. 1976)?
Superordinate(Global) level, Basic level, and the Subordinate(Specific) level
What is the Superordinate(Global) Level in the Hierarchical Organization of Categories (Rosch et al. 1976)? What are some examples?
A very broad level of Categorization (Furniture, Vehicles, Musical Instruments…)
What is the Basic Level in the Hierarchical Organization of Categories (Rosch et al. 1976)? What are some examples?
A middle level of Categorization under the Superordinate(Global) level (within Vehicles there’s cars, buses, in Furniture there’s chairs, etc…)
What is the Subordinate (Specific) Level in the Hierarchical Organization of Categories (Rosch et al. 1976)? What are some examples?
Detailed Categories under each Basic Level (dining room chairs, office chairs, etc…)
What can influence your Subordinate (Specific) Level?
Your level of expertise–you may have more Subordinate (Specific) Levels under the normal ones (more chair types under Dining Room Chairs)
Why do we use levels to Categorize?
It’s very efficient!
What happened in the Basic Level Advantage(Rosch et al., 1976)? What are the two parts of the outcomes?
When subjects were asked to verify that an object was within a Category
What were the three outcomes for the Basic Level Advantage(Rosch et al., 1976)?
Reaction Times (RTs) were fastest when asked about a Basic Level word AND when asked to name a word they answered with a Basic Level word AND babies’ first words are at the basic level(“tree!” not “Spruce!”)
What are Babies’ first words and why? What is this an example of?
Basic Level words! It’s the easiest for them to acquire–Basic Level Superiority Effect (level advantage)
What are some examples of something a subject would be told in the Basic Level Advantage study? What would the outcomes be and what level would the words be?
Basic Level: “Chair”? -> yes! Fast
Subordinate Level: “Dining Room Chair?” -> yes! not as fast
How did Tanaka & Taylor test to see if experts show a Basic Level Advantage in 1991? What is this type of task called?
They had bird experts and non-experts do an Object Naming Task–they showed them a variety of Categories including birds to see what they would label the objects/birds as
What was the outcome of the Tanaka & Taylor Basic Level Advantage with Experts study?
The experts would label the birds in a mostly specific/subordinate level way (Hummingbird!), while non-experts labeled them mostly in a basic-level way(bird!)
Why do experts organize things in a subordinate way?
To organize information so as to enable preferential access to their domain of expertise
How do experts organize things differently? What are their levels like? What level do experts organize their information in?
Their Basic Level Categories are what we consider to be Subordinate Level, and their Subordinate Categories are things we’ve likely never heard of (So, for experts it’s usual to organize things into the subordinate level)
What are two things a “good” Category should have?
Members should share lots of attributes with each other (dog Category shouldn’t have ones that meow and ones that bark) and members should NOT share attributes with members of a different Category
Why shouldn’t members of a Category overlap with other Categories?
The Category would lose it’s descriptiveness because certain things wouldn’t be one-Category specific (dogs shouldn’t go underwater! Not descriptive enough from fish Category)
Why is there a Basic Level Advantage?
The Basic Level finds a happy medium between the two things a “good” Category ought to have and avoids the two (subordinate and superordinate) extremes
What is an example of why there’s a Basic Level Advantage?
Most members of a “chair” Category have any attributes in common(a seat, back, etc…), and chairs have minimal overlap with other Basic level Categories like lamps, tables, and beds
What is the Superordinate level good at? Example?
Members have minimal overlap with other Superordinate Categories (animals have little overlap with furniture)
What is the Superordinate level bad at? Example?
Members of a Superordinate Category have little in common with each other; and so don’t have a lot of shared features in a Category (all animals is very vague and a horse is much different from a fish)
What is the Subordinate level good at? Example?
Members have lots of attributes in common in a Category (“wing chair”s have a lot in common with each other)
What is the Subordinate level bad at? Example?
Members overlap a lot with those in other Categories (Wing chairs share a lot with dining room chairs, office chairs, etc..)
What happened in the Rosch et al. members study? (1976)
Had three groups of subjects list common attributes for Categories in at the Superordinate level (musical instruments), Basic level (guitars), and the Subordinate level(electric guitars)
What were the outcomes of the Rosch et al. members study? (1976)
Subjects could only think of a few(0-3) common attributes for the Superordinate Categories and were able to find a lot in common(9) in the Basic level Categories
Example of why subjects couldn’t give much for the Superordinate Categories in the Rosch et al. members study? (1976)
What does all furniture have in common? I don’t know!
Why could subjects give so much for the Subordinate Categories in the Rosch et al. members study? (1976) Example?
They’re inheriting what the Basic level had in common and there’s additional features (Subordinate blue jeans are also blue and jeans on top of what they have in the Basic level pants)
What level do you get most of your information? What happens if you move from that level?
Basic level is where you get most of your information, going up to Superordinate(Global) loses a lot of information and moving down to Subordinate(Specific) gives you a little more information
What is the real base of Levels idea? What is it all about? What does that mean?
It’s looking into how we encode things (taking in and organizing information)
What is the Hierarchical Model all about?
Retrieval of semantic memory and how it happens
How many levels are there in the Hierarchical Model?
Three! Like the Superordinate, Subordinate, and Basic levels! Starts super broad and then narrows down
How is information organized in the Hierarchical Model?
A hierarchy of concepts, just like before!
What is in each Category in the Hierarchical Model?
A list of associated attributes
What are Nodes in the Hierarchical Model?
Categories
What are Nodes connected by in the Hierarchical Model?
Links/Arrows
What is attached to each Node in the Hierarchical Model? What else can it be called?
Properties/Attributes
What do the Properties attached to a Node apply to?
That Node and every linked Node under it in the hierarchy
What is an example of Properties attaching to multiple Nodes? What will the top Nodes have?
Fish swim, so we know sharks can swim because they’re fish–the ones on top of it will have the tope attributes
Define Cognitive Economy; to which structure of knowledge does it belong?
Properties are only represented once (not repeated each Node); lower Nodes inherit Properties from higher Nodes; Hierarchical Model
Do Properties attached to lower Nodes apply to linked Nodes higher in the Hierarchy? Example?
Not necessarily–Birds can fly, but not all animals can fly
What is a very efficient method of representing information?
The combination of the Principle of Cognitive Economy and the Hierarchical Organization
What is the con of the Hierarchical Organization?
When information is recalled, the hierarchy must be navigated through
How can you confirm that canaries can fly in the Hierarchical Model? Is this good?
You have to navigate to the “can fly” Node–Inefficient
What are some assumptions of the Hierarchical Model?
In order to retrieve information you must be at the Node in which the information resides, and if a lower Node has an exception from the higher Nodes it must be noted–AND moving around the Nodes takes a certain amount of time
Does moving around the Nodes take time?
Yes!
Is the time that it takes to move around the Nodes additive in the Hierarchical Model?
Yes!
In the Hierarchical Model which proposition would take longer to verify? Why? –> “A canary can sing” or “A canary can fly”
“A canary can fly”–because this requires both a movement and a retrieval operation
In the Hierarchical Model which proposition would take longer to verify? Why? –> “A canary is a bird” or “A canary can fly”
“A canary can fly” because this requires both a movement and a retrieval operation–while “A canary is a bird” just requires a movement
COME BACK TO
How did Colling and Quilian test the Hierarchical Model?
They used a Sentence Verification Task–6 propositions differing in the number of retrieval and movement operations
What is a Sentence Verification Task?
Subjects had to verify whether a proposition was true or false
