Lecture 12: Concepts and Knowledge Flashcards
1
Q
Explicit vs implicit memory
A
2
Q
What is an example of memory differences from knowledge?
A
London Taxi drivers must pass ‘the knowledge’ test of the 25,000 streets within a 10-kilometer radius of London. This means they have morre memory of the streets do tho their knowledge that they have to aqcuire prior to being a driver.
3
Q
London taxi drivers
A
- Taxi drivers performed better on tests of spatial memory than bus drivers
- Taxi drivers have greater posterior (but smaller anterior) hippocampi.
- They also tested on the bust drivers around lonndon but they don’t need the same knowledge about the spatial layout because they are always taking the same route.
- This is why we think that the posterior part of the hippocampus is very important for spatial forms of episodic memory.
- Posterior hippocampal volume is related to years of experience as a taxi driver. The greater the volume of the posterior hippocampus, the more years they have been driving taxis. The time you spend as a taxi driver and the size of the posterior hippocampus is positively related.
- They are using and developing the region developing neurogenesis.
4
Q
Highly Superior Autobiographical
Memory (HSAM)
A
- Enhanced autobiographical memory (outstanding detail and accuracy for autobiographical memories)
- Can remember every single day from their lives in detail
Does not involve mnemonic strategies
* HSAM people are not memory athletes
* HSAM people do not have photographic memory
* HSAM people do not remember a word list better than average. if you assess their memory with standard battery of test, they perform normally
5
Q
Test for HSAM abilitiess
A
** Dates Quiz**
Describe June 29, 2007
* What day of week was it?
* What did you do?
* What was the weather like?
Public Events Quiz
When did these public events happen?
* When did Princess Diana die?
* What happened on June 29 2007?
People with HSAM are more fantasy prone.
6
Q
Downside to a detailed memory (HSAM)
A
- A case studied by Luria who had a perfect detailed memory
- Recalled conversations word for word
- Recalled detailed events from years ago
- Could reproduce 70 digits without error
- Problems with accessing general concept knowledge
- E.g., recognizing items if there a slight change in detail
- Common to have OCD tendecies because they constantly replay past events in details.
- Difficult for them to form social networks that comes from the social part of memory. Remember things in a lot of detail but people in their social network do not so that creates problems.
- This perfect “pathological memory interfered with his ability to hold a regular job, enjoy literature, or even seemingly to think in the abstract without being distracted by sensory association.”
7
Q
The concept of concepts
important terms: categories, concepts and exemplars.
A
Terms
* Categories: items that are grouped together
* Concepts: general knowledge of a category (mental representation, non detailed)
* Exemplars: individual items (or members) in a category
- Function
- Concepts are vital to do “the right thing with the right kind of thing”
- They are used to predict outcomes, guide behaviour and for communication
- Helps us know how to act in certain ssituations
8
Q
Concept organization
A
- The fact that you can identify/ talk about the snowy owl means that you can access or define concepts at different levels of specificity.
- You can access cocepts at a general or specific terms.
- Theoretical organazition of conceptual information.
- In general, we can talk about concepts in 2D in how it is organized. One organizes concepts in 3 levels based on inclusivity.
- General to specific hierchary:
- Superordinate level - presented in brod/general term to define concept.
- Basic - More details represention of concept.
- subordinate - very detailed representation of a concept.
9
Q
Cognitive economy
A
- A balance between simplification and differentiation. Balance between accessinng general enough information and information that can help you distinguish between things.
- Use the simplest terms that is still meaningful for the situation
- General public “This is an owl”
- Birders ”This is a snowy owl”
Make everything as simple as possible but not simpler
10
Q
Concepts in development and disease.
A
- Child learn basic, superordinate, then subordinate concepts
- Semantic dementia patients can use basic level concepts (dog), becomes impaired as the disease progresses
- Early in the disease, basic level concepts are accessed
* A dog is a dog - As the disease progresses, use general concepts
* A dog is an animal
11
Q
A graded concept organization
A
- Organizing concepts across a level.
- Lets us know what a good example of a concept is. Grades how well that examplar belongs to that category. Ie: a trout might be a better example of a fish than a shark.
- Establishing these networks all depend on how a model would suggest we learn and represent concepts.
12
Q
Concepts about concepts. What is a concept?
A
- Generalization is the process of deriving a concept from a specific number of experiences and applying it widely to help you label new instances. (episodic memories come together to help you form concepts and general knowledge). Develop concepts by generalizing what we see and use them to make predictions.
- Do we follow rules, similarity or explanation to form
generalizations? - Do we retrieve representations of specific past instances or
abstracted ideas that transcend these specific experiences ?
13
Q
The classic approach to concept learning
A
- Concepts involve forming rules about lists features.
- Defining features are necessary and sufficient for category membership (ie. if something is considered a dog it must have defining features. It must be alive, animate, breaters, fu, 4 legs).
- Characteristics features are those common but not essential for category membership Ie: god has to pant or love beef layer.
- Feature comparison between encountered items and list
* Refines what a defining features is for a concept
Having this rule based approach becomes problematitic when we are exposed to more complicated defining features. Everytime we are exposed to complex everchanging stimuli in the world, you would have to change your rule in what you consider a defining feature in a dog or you are gonna say that they arent dogs.
- Works well for simple concepts, not so much for:
- Complex concepts that are subject to variability (e.g., a fur-less dog)
- Ambiguous concepts: ‘student’; a ‘bachelor’; a ‘hot dog’
It is often what people will try to use when they are learning a new concept.
14
Q
The cube rule
A
- Rule based concept approach to categorization.
- Series of rule to define food based on where the starch is.
- Does not cut it, for example, it would day that hot god is a taco. Or susho with rice on the bottom is a toast.
15
Q
Concepts are represented by similarities
A
- Concepts are note based on defined features, rather are defined by the resemblance to a collection of features
- Wittgenstein: What is common among the concept ‘Game’?
- There is no single attribute that defines a game rather there is a ‘family resemblance’, some inherent similarity.
- Vey well understood by the concept of a game. It has a meaning but there is not just one single thing that we can use to define all games. Not all games are used to play sports, some gamess are played online or in the kitchen.
- According to this theory concepts are not about a common attribute its more about family resemblance. Similaritiess between items.
16
Q
Fuzzy boundaries
A
- For any one category, there are really good exampless of a concept and other really not good examples of a concept.
- Items are, more or less, part of a category
- Concepts can have fuzzy boundaries so there is no defining features, is also what allows concepts to be dynamic.
- An item can be categorized into more than one category. Depending on what you are focusing on.
17
Q
Feature list vs networks
A
- Physical object
- Living
- Animate
- Feathers
- We see that in later learning, with more refinment, we tend to see a more similarity based approach to concept learning and similarity.
- Concepts are represented as connected nodes in a network.
- Concepts are represented in a network based on relatedness or similarity.
23
Q
Category name primes typical exemplars
A
- Typicalty effect is also seen in priming.
- Priming is implicit memory. How previous information affects how you process it. This happens without conscious awareness.
- Series of word come up on the screen and then you have to press is it a word or not. Reaction time is measured.
- They will have one category and then have a few seconds and then a word that is typical, non typical or a nonword.
- People are faster to indicate/ make the lexical decision to the word “apple” then “papaya” or “monate” when that follows he category fruit. That is because apple is a more typical member of the category fruit so it is stored closer in a sematic network and spreading activation can happen more quickly when you have to access that concept information.
25
Q
Conceptss affects typicality
A
- Rate the typicality as a member of the category bird
- Typicality is the result of both combined concept and context.
- Typicality does not jut result from prototypical concepts but also is involved combining that with situations.
- If people make this average typicality rating afterr seing a farm image or a city image, the same individuals will rate a chicken as a more typical member of the category bird when they see a farm image rather than a bird image.
- This shows that context and also our experiences do shape conceptual representation. It changes what we think is most typical of a concept.
- Prototype theory does not take the context into account.
28
Q
Multiple forms of representations
A
- It is likely not one theory either prototype or exemplar. We can represent concepts both as abstract prototypes and as exemplars. We have the ability to do this because sometimes we need to access concepts more abstractely and sometimes we really need to acess it in terms of specificity that we get from exemplars.
- Prototype (yellow, red) versus exemplars (green, blue) engage
different brain networks - To meet different task demands
- Specificity task – exemplar; generalized task - prototype
- Holding multiple representations supports flexible thought
32
Q
ADHD, knowledge and creativity
A
- Conceptual expansion, a process of thinking outside traditional conceptual boundaries. Linked to creativity.
- Maybe having solid conceptual knowledge categories can strain creativity.
- Concept expansion in individuals with ADHD. Deficit asociated with ihibitory control, you do not inhibit information that is relevent to a specific task.
- Maybe that can help with creativity. If you are not inhibiting loosely connected information, maybe it will help you in making connections in more inventive ways.
- The drawings of the people with ADHD are much more creative. Evidence that less constraint on existence conceptual knowledge does help with creativity.
35
Q
Property verification task for perceptual symbols system.
A
- Participant are shown a context (like leaves) with a sound perception like rustling and they had to verify if that perception was part of that concept object.
- Property verification tasks over a series of trials.
- People are faster to respond if a previous trial asked about a feature from the same percept (there is priming over questions about the same perception but no priming when you compare it to question about different perceptions.
- We recruit concepts based on senses/perceptions
- When we access concepts, we access the perceptual processes of them and not abstractly.
36
Q
Brain representations
A
- In an MRI scanner,
participants passively read
action words (pick, kick, lick) - The brain region that process
movements associated with those words were active during passive reading. - When they read the words, they mapped onto the particular motorsensory processes that would be engaged if you were actually using your hand or foot or mouth.
38
Q
Patient with deficit naming living thing
A
A patient with a selective deficit in naming living things (animals)
* big deficit in naming animals vs other objects.
* There is a dissociation in the brain for living things versus non living things.
40
Q
Loss of concept depends on
A
brain damage.
* type of concept that is loss will be specific to categories depending on where the damage is.
