Knowledge Representation Flashcards
Process vs. Representation
Process
- what the mind DOES, information processing such as attention and encoding
Representation
- the FORMAT of stored knowledge
- “kinds” of knowledge include declarative (based on facts) and procedural (knowledge on how to do things)
Forms of mental representation include ______ and ______
Symbolic
- abstract, arbitrary
- does not have a direct connection to what the thing is and instead uses symbols such as “5” or “five”
Analog
- concrete, direct
- can directly capture aspects of the target information
- preserves visual-spatial representations
- example is having 5 oranges or writing 5 tally marks to directly represent the concept of the number
‘Spatial’ representation
Spatial representation is the idea that visual information is represented in analog form in the mind
Kosslyn (1973)
- mental scanning task
- the farther away the verification item (plane’s tail) was from the starting point in the image (plane’s propeller), the longer it took participants to complete the task
- shows that mental images exist as spatial representations in the mind that we can access to complete a task (the task of mental scanning)
Mental Rotation (Shepard & Metzler)
- there are two objects with different orientations/rotations
- participants have to determine if the objects are identical and just in different rotational positions
- highly linear results suggest that people are creating a mental image of the object in VSSP and physically rotating it to determine if it is identical to the other object
- amount of time to determine “match” was a direct function of the degree of actual rotation
- conclusion that participants “mentally rotate” objects in the visuo-spatial sketchpad
Image scaling
- properties of mental images are often similar to real perception
- properties include size/distance relations
- analog relations between parts to whole object
Kosslyn (1975)
- imagine an elephant and a cat; property verification task asks if the cat has ears
- imagine a flea and cat; property verification task asks if the cat has claws
- participants were faster to verify details that are “larger” in the mental image; in this case it was the cat’s claws because the cat is the larger object in this cat/flea image
Image scanning
- images appear to be scanned like physical percepts
- therefore, greater distance = longer scan time
- visual image preserves spatial relations
- this is known as “spatial” representation
Kosslyn (1978)
- subjects were asked to “mentally travel” across a map of a fictional island to different locations
- the time it took to mentally travel was longer for locations that were further apart on the island
- this suggests that subjects were moving around on a spatial representation of the map in their minds
Dual-code theory (Paivio)
- TWO ways to represent concepts: VISUAL code and VERBAL code
- visual code = analog image; such as a physical image of a lamp
- verbal code = linguistic label or description; such as “the lamp is on the table”
- TWO ASSUMPTIONS OF DUAL-CODE THEORY
1. a picture will be automatically labeled with its name at the time of study
2. words will not automatically invoke a corresponding image, due to the fact that words only produce a verbal code (the word itself)
Picture superiority effect
Picture superiority effect is a result showing that memory for pictures is superior to memory for words of the same concept
- pictures produce automatic encoding in two modalities: visual code (the picture itself) AND verbal code (the label for the picture)
The concreteness effect
The concreteness effect is a result showing that memory for concrete concepts is superior to memory for abstract concepts
- although words are not automatically imagined or invoke a corresponding image, sometimes words items can be imagined during encoding or retrieval BUT concrete objects are imagined than abstract objects
Dual codes facilitates memory
- concrete concepts have BOTH codes
- richer representation of concrete concepts leads to better memory
- abstract concepts ONLY have verbal labels
- therefore, they must be represented in terms of words
- example: gravity is hard to imagine so you can only represent it through its verbal label/word form as “gravity”
Brooks (1968)
Indicate whether each word is a noun in the sentence: “John ran to the store to buy some oranges”
- this is a VERBAL stimulus
- task #1: say “yes” or “no” (verbal task)
- task #2: point to “yes” or “no”
(spatial task)
Visualize “F” and indicate whether each corner is “outside”
- this is a SPATIAL stimulus
- task #3: say “yes” or “no” (verbal task)
- task #4: point to “yes” or “no”
(spatial task)
- task #1: HARDER because subjects had to remember the sentence (verbal stimulus) and respond yes or no verbally; OVERLOAD in phonological loop
- task #2: EASIER because subjects had to remember the sentence (verbal stimulus) in the phonological loop and respond spatially by pointing to yes or no in the visuospatial sketchpad
- task #3: EASIER because subjects had to remember/visualize “F” in visuospatial sketchpad and respond verbally yes or no in phonological loop
- task #4: HARDER because subjects had to visualize “F” and point to yes or no; OVERLOAD in visuospatial sketchpad
Dual Codes in Brooks (1968)
- when the mode of responding involves the SAME CODE, performance suffers
- longer time to respond for “F” and pointing yes/no (overload in visuospatial sketchpad)
- longer time to respond for sentence and saying yes/no (overload in phonological loop)
Relational-organizational elaboration (Bower)
- imagery improves memory because it produces associations (RELATIONS) between stimuli
- more “hooks” that connect information
- specific KIND of elaboration (the development of an existing idea by incorporating new information/details to augment the idea)
Interactive imagery
- mental image of both words forms a single, interactive image
- unitization is formed when pieces of information are encoded as a single representation in memory
Bizarre imagery
The bizarreness effect is a result showing that memory for unusual images is superior to memory for typical images
- bizarre sentences that create an unusual image were remembered better than sentences that create a more common, logical image
- bizarreness effect is caused by the distinctiveness of the bizarre image when compared with the common image
- so, bizarre sentences are less distinct when all of the sentences to be remembered are bizarre
- bizarre imagery only aids memory when it stands out against other studied information
- remember: DISTINCTIVENESS aids/improves memory
