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?)