md2 Flashcards

1
Q

Semantic Externalism

A

-movement tracing back to 1960-70s
-words get meaning from casual chains connecting us to things in world
-shakespeare, caveman, scientist all mean the same thing when they say “water”

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2
Q

Semantic Internalism

A

-words get meaning from images/descriptions that speakers associate those words with in their minds

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3
Q

Sematic Externalism and Scepticism; Brain in a Vat (Hilary Putnam)

A

-Hilary Putnam 1981 argued that “I am now a brain in a vat” cannot be understood by anyone who is actually brain in a vat
-inspired immediate backlash
-someone just placed in a vat could understand this sentence

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4
Q

Matrix Movie

A

-1999 Science fiction
-Neo’s life is simulation; war against machines have been lost
-Humans now trapped in VR pods
-Red pill (leave matrix) or blue pill (remain in matrix)

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5
Q

David Chalmers BIV

A

-Brain in vat is better off
-everyday beliefs about surroundings are true; not actually being deceived
-when BIV talks about ‘small book’ actually referring to subroutines in supercomputer; BIV is still right to say they are holding a book

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6
Q

Defense from Skepticism

A

-avoid skeptics; no point in arguing
-diagnose the appeal of skepticism; good thing (suspending judgement temporarily) taken too far

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7
Q

Reliabilism

A

-popular view of justification
-a belief is justified if it’s produced by a reliable psychological process (wishful thinking vs. standard perceptual processes, good reasoning, introspection)

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8
Q

Implicit Bias

A

-automatically activated, unconscious attitude or stereotype

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9
Q

Implicit Association Task (IAT)

A

-Nosek et al. examined 700,000 subjects on race-evaluation IAT
-over 70% of white participants more easily associated black faces with negative words (e.g., bad, war) and white faces with more positive words (e.g., good, peace)

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10
Q

Colour memory/perception

A

-Memory of colour effects perception of colour
-bananas appear slightly yellow even if achromatic

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11
Q

Cognitive Penetration of Perceptual Experience (+example)

A

-Occurs when cognitive states (e.g., belief, desires) influence content of perceptual experience
-e.g., people more likely to misidentify object as gun if primed with face of black man

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12
Q

Moral Judgements

A

-arbitrary factors can alter how we make judgements without our knowledge
-e.g., how immoral/moral is sex between 1st cousins?

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13
Q

Plato and Theory of Recollection (Anamnesis)

A

-in Plato’s Meno, Socrates attempts to illustrate that uneducated boy “already knew” how to find diagonal of square by asking a series of question
-Plato’s theory of knowledge: learning is actually recollection
-nativist

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14
Q

Direct Priming Effect

A

-when required to complete fragments of recently presented words and of new words, subject succeed more often with presented words
-experience of stimulus primes brain so that further experience W stimulus is processed faster

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15
Q

Implicit memory/knowledge (formation and examples)

A

-performance on task is facilitated in absence of conscious recollection
-non-declarative memories
-form though automatic processes and bypass conscious encoding track
-procedural memory, perceptual representation system (perceptual priming), classical conditioning, nonassociative learning

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16
Q

Explicit memory/knowledge

A

-revealed when performance on task requires conscious recollection of previous experiences

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17
Q

Species knowledge

A

-information acquired/contained within entirety of species
-e.g., literature, science
-individual (but not all) portions accessible to individual at any given time

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18
Q

Semantic memory

A

-“i know that” – knowing about things learned in past
-memory for word knowledge
-timeless; does not rely on ‘mental time travel’
-does not involve conscious recollection

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19
Q

Episodic Memory

A

-“i remember that” – remembering the past
-memory for episodes distinct in time and space
-associated with ‘mental time travel’
-conscious recollection of personal past experience
-based on 1st person experience

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20
Q

Explicit knowledge and brain

A

-medial-temporal/frontal lobes
-hippocampus: spatial memory/recognition
-rhinal cortex: object recognition
-mediodorsal nucleus: Korsakoff’s symptoms
-Basal forebrain: alzheimers symptoms
Mhrb

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21
Q

Hippocampus size

A

-larger in food storing birds than non-food storing birds
-larger in taxi cab drivers; volume increases with more time on job

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22
Q

Basic factors of memory as knowledge

A

-encoding: building a representation of new knowledge, ‘learning’
-storage: maintenance of that knowledge representation
-retrieval: accessing pre-existing knowledge, ‘remembering’

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23
Q

H.M, 1953

A

-1953, 27 yr old man H.M. underwent brain surgery to alleviate epilepsy
-had around one generalized convulsion every week and a number of partial convulsions daily
-medications weren’t working
-EEGs suggested convulsions originated from both temporal lobes
-underwent bilateral medial temporal lobectomy

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24
Q

H.M Bilaterial Medial Temporal Lobectomy

A

-unilateral medical temporal lobectomy had proven to be effective in pts with epileptic focus on 1 medial temporal lobe
-both lobes removed in H.M.
-involved removal of medial portion of both temporal lobes, hippocampus, amygdala, and adjacent cortex (rhinal cortex)
-succesful in terms of epilepsy; generalized convulsions almost completely eliminated, partial seizures greatly reduced
-IQ increased from 104-118
-resulted in severe amnesia

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25
Q

H.M. Post-Surgical Assessment

A

-normal, bright, good language and social skills
-could discuss childhood, teens
-lost ability to form new memories that he could consciously recall until death at age 82
-favourite uncle died – relived grief each time he heard news
-memory for events contained little after 1953

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26
Q

Tests to assess H.M.’s Amnesia

A

-mirror drawing test
-pavlovian conditioning

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27
Q

Mirror-Drawing Test

A

-showed that HM’s anterograde amnesia was not for all types of long-term memories
-performance improved across days despite never remembering having done the task before

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28
Q

Pavlonian Conditioning (HM)

A

-tone sounded before puff of air administered to one eye; eventually tone elicits eyeblink
-learned the task – response still present 2 yrs later

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29
Q

Implicit Knowledge and Brain

A

-amygdala: memory for emotional significance of experience
-inferotemporal cortex: role in storing memories of visual/auditory patterns
-cerebellum: stores memories of sensorimotor skills
Aic

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30
Q

Sensory Habituation

A

-Reduces consistent non-informative sensory experiences

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31
Q

Neurological Memory

A

-Hebb rule: if axon of presynaptic neuron is active while post-synaptic neuron is firing, synapse will be strengthened (fire together, wire together)
-when cell persistently activates another nearby cell, the connection between the two cells becomes stronger

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32
Q

Brain states

A

-Network based activation appear correlated to cognitive states; not location dependent
-specific patterns of activation relate to specific perceptual experience and behaviours
-“Brain makes decisions before you even know it”

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33
Q

John Locke’s Tabula Rosa

A

-minds are ‘blank sheets’ when born
-all ideas acquired through experience
-empiricism

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34
Q

Nativism and Empiricism

A

theoretical frameworks for the character of the psychological systems that underlie the acquisition of psychological traits

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35
Q

Empiricism (mechanisms, example)

A

-few distinct psychological mechanisms for acquiring psychological traits
-explain psychological traits by appealing to domain-general mechanisms like statistical learning routines, memory retrieval, attentional mechanisms, associative connectivity
-traits are result of environmental conditions and individual learning histories
-e.g., behaviorist associative learning processes (classical and operant conditioning)

36
Q

Empiricist Origin of Traits

A

-acquisition of all psychological traits depends on only a few psychological systems: empiricist acquisition base
-e.g., psychological mechanisms for learning language are same as those for learning about object permanence

37
Q

Empiricist acquisition base and Nativist acquisition base

A

-psychological systems responsible for psychological traits

38
Q

Nativist origin of traits

A

-many distinct types of mechanisms and processes for acquiring traits
-domain-general and domain-specific systems; nativist acquisition base

39
Q

Organization of Learning (1990)

A

-C.R. Gallistel’s nativist book
-credits animals with specialized computational systems responsible for navigating, foraging
-systems allow animals to learn such things as way home, optimal strategy for obtaining food in given region

40
Q

Nativism: Poverty of Stimulus Argument

A

-information in a learner’s environment is inadequate to account for an acquired psychological trait given only general-purpose learning systems

41
Q

Arguments against Poverty of Stimulus

A

-not enough evidence to establish that environment is as impoverished as they claim
-suggest that general-purpose learning systems may be capable of accomplishing learning task
-e.g., can easily determine extensions of curry even if never seen before, but we don’t have a curry-specific learning system
-real stimulus is not impoverished; squirrels may learn behaviour from other squirrels, even if exhibiting this behaviour in isolation

42
Q

Poverty of Stimulus evidence

A

-isolation experiments
-children language acquisition

43
Q

Isolation experiments

A

-subjects removed from all stimuli related to acquired trait
-Irenaus Eibl-Eibestfelt: showed squirrels will exhibit burying/digging behaviour in isolation when given nuts

44
Q

Children language acquisition

A

-children go through stage of adding extra “wh” word to sentences
-speech exhibits systematic and predictable pattern with wh word in specific location
-do not insert extra wh- phrases or use extra wh- words when extracting from infintival clauses
-german, english, and children of other languages do this

45
Q

Why psychological traits appear in impoverished states

A

-traits may be so important that they cannot be left to less reliable means of acquisition
-may even be multiple specialized systems if important enough; e.g., chicks identifying mom
-allows rapid acquisition of trait
-less cognitive effort required

46
Q

Chicks recognizing mother

A

-very important psychological trait
-multiple independent systems
-system of detecting large moving objects
-system that relies on shape template

47
Q

Argument from Animals

A

-plethora of specialized learning systems in animals; some shared across species, others unique
-humans are also animals

48
Q

Animal specialized learning systems

A

-developing mental maps of environment
-plotting sun position (date/time)
-avoidance of poisonous food
-selecting foraging locations based on rates of return
-signalling presence of predators
-locating/building new nests sites/nests

49
Q

Argument from animals evidence

A

-animal food aversion
-dead reckoning

50
Q

Animal food aversion

A

-rats who become ill after drinking flavoured water will avoid flavor, ignoring other auditory/visual clues
-rats punished via shock learn visual/auditory clues, but punishment must occur within seconds of ingesting water; different psychological systems
-some birds link illness with colour
-vampire bats don’t form taste aversions

51
Q

Dead reckoning (and evidence)

A

-desert ants get back home by following straight line back to nest; environment is devoid of landmark clues
-mechanism keeps track of direction changes and distance covered
-if ant displaced, follows corresponding path in terms of distance/angle and then randomly search vincity
-if ant’s legs are made shorter or longer, ant will automatically overshoot/undershoot distance to nest
-found in variety of animals, including humans

52
Q

Object Permanence

A

-Jean Piaget
-psychologists believed that this ability was built over time, must be learned
-newborn chicks have object permanence; do not pass through Piaget’s stages

53
Q

Face perception

A

-faces are processed differently; thatcher effect, faces in clouds
-fMRI studies in humans show activation in fusiform gyrus (fusiform face area) in response to faces
-special neurons in macaques respond to faces
-infants have preference for faces

54
Q

Prosopagnosia

A

-face recognition impairment

55
Q

Nativist view of face perception (and evidence)

A

-human (and other animals) brains contain info about face structure and have biases that lead to preference for faces
-evidence includes infants, neural machinery, evolutionary considerations

56
Q

Empiricist view of face perception (and evidence)

A

-constant exposure to faces and salience leads general learning mechanisms to develop face perception ‘expertise’
-evidence is that the fusiform face area responds similarly when people are trained to perceive “greebles”

57
Q

Greebles

A

-structures that are shaped somewhat similarly to faces

58
Q

Objection: Nativism is unproven

A

-Nelson Goodman (1967): Short of isolation experiment with actual infant, nativism isn’t worthy of discussion
-empiricism is default view, should be rules out before considering nativism
-empiricism is preferred for being more simple, less costly

59
Q

Counterargument: Nativism is unproven

A

-dispute is about structures/processes that subserve acquisition of traits
-argument is based on best explanation, not on proof
-nativism is very plausible; to ignore, strong argument is required
-may be more computationally parsimonious (e.g., language acquisition)
-computational load may be lighter due to specialized systems
-more parsimonious in terms of evolutionary continuity

60
Q

Objection: Nativism is unscientific

A

-theoretical laziness; does not explain origin of traits, just blames innate structure
-nativism is welded to field of evolutionary psychology; ‘so-so’ stories
-nativism is anti-empirical

61
Q

Counterargument: nativism is unscientific

A

-isn’t about identifying traits, but systems which can ultimately explain what empiricism cannot
-Chomsky and Fodor were unenthusiastic about evolutionary approaches to mind
-researchers were able to predict which species would acquire taste aversions due to evolution/adaptation

62
Q

Objection: nativism is overly intellectualist

A

-mature behavioural capacities involve simple cognitive traits or none at all
-nothing more to mind than perception and action-governing mechanisms (e.g., Rodney Brooks)
-perception directly leads to action

63
Q

Counterargument: Nativism is overly intellectualist

A

-Empiricists have overlooked evidence
-empiricism under-intellectualizes the mind
-e.g., bee-dance system of communication, ants selecting nests

64
Q

Bee dance system of communication

A

-bees process info about movements of other bees with other info (e.g., food quality) to determine whether to leave nest, which direction/distance, all while processing change in sun position

65
Q

Ants selecting nests

A

-selective to number of factors, e.g., floor size, ceiling height, entrance size, darkness level, hygeine level, proximity of hostile ant groups
-exhibit stable, ranked preferences for these factors; cannot be learned given infrequency of use

66
Q

Objection: Nativism is a confused doctrine

A

-nativists claim that psychological environment has nothing to do w/ environment
-innateness is ill-defined, can’t do meaningful work

67
Q

Counterargument: nativism is a confused doctrine

A

-environment is not independent; question is what learning systems interact w/ environment to produce traits
-purpose of nativism: domain-specific and domain-general systems
-not about innateness, about acquisition base
-innateness need not be defined; latin pill

68
Q

Psychologically primitive

A

-traits that are not acquired via psychological processes
-account of innateness called primitism

69
Q

Latin pill

A

-hypothetical pill that implants knowledge of latin without any intervening psychological processes
-not innate nor learned

70
Q

Radical concept nativism

A

-Jerry Fodor
-gave nativism about conceptual system a bad name
-virtually all concepts corresponding to individual words (even ukelele) are innate
-is not plausible

71
Q

Origin of human concepts

A

-significant amount of concepts are part of acquisition base, not as many as Fodor suggested
-these concepts are part of systems that comprise basis for acquiring further concepts
-nativists should embrace large range of concepts acquired through learning, even empiricist learning systems

72
Q

Concepts part of Nativist acquisition Base

A

-unlearned
-objects, casuality, space, time, numbers, goals, functions, agency, movement, direction, events, sex, predators, danger, status, dominance, morality

73
Q

Nativist learning theories

A

-cognitive sub-systems
-domain-specific and general-purpose systems

74
Q

Learning: Cognitive sub-systems

A

-rely on specialized acquisition systems for certain types of concepts
-acquisition system provides template for concepts of this type
-adctivated only in certain conditions, fill in template according to experiences of learner
-e.g., domain-specific aquisition of concepts of animals in humans

75
Q

Theory of Humans acquiring concepts of animals

A

-learner is sensitive to cues that item is new animal
-new representation produced in presence of cues
-perceptual info is recorded in conncection w/ representation, controlling subsequent activation
-accompanying disposition to treat other items as animal only if they have same essential nature
-essentialist thinking about animals (knowing that perception may be untrue) is robust across cultures, occurs early in development, may emerge with little parental support

76
Q

Nativist learning: Domain-specific and general-purpose systems (and example)

A

-uses both general-purpose and domain-specific systems
-exceeds function of individual systems
-Pascal Boyer’s account of origins of many religious concepts

77
Q

Religious concepts

A

-Pascal Boyer
-concepts draw upon small number of specialized systems that embody core intuitive theories, such as folk psychology, biology, physics
-all part of nativist acquisition base
-deviations from theories cause new religious concepts
-deviations are unexpected and hence remembered and passed on to others
-depends on experience and socialization

78
Q

Factors of language learning

A

-inscrutability of reference: man points to rabbit and says Gavagai! What does he mean?
-acoustic barrage: making right sounds, breaking sounds up, is gavagai one word or a string of words?
-variability in speech: hot vs. HOT!!!
-linguists have yet to map out grammar of single language, but toddlers master language in few years

79
Q

Empiricist theory of Language

A

-behaviourist psychology (Watson, Skinner)
-argue that child learns words through imitation and reinforcement
-utterances are tied to ‘stimulus properties’/features of object/event being observed

80
Q

Chomsky’s critique: Empiricist theory of language

A

-many stimuli we refer to don’t impinge on our senses (e.g., moscow, idea)
-what causes me to utter something is better explained by what is in my head rather than stimulus properties

81
Q

Nativist theory of Language: Innate grammar

A

-Chomsky
-humans possess capacity for language, activated by minimal environmental stimuli
-Language Acquisition Device is encoded and contains informational constraints that enable language acquisition
-very controversial
-supported by poverty of stimulus, universal syntatic rules/principles

82
Q

Nativist argument child for acquiring language

A

-children are not exposed to enough data to learn correct language rules if starting from scratch
-if children were empiricist learners, they would not reliably arrive at correct grammar; yet they do
-children are not empiricist learners

83
Q

Children and turning statements into questions

A

-turning statements into questions (e.g., ecuador is in south america&raquo_space;> is ecuador in south america?)
-auxiliary verb from main clause must be moved to front of sentence; child must have concepts for main clause and auxiliary verb
-auxiliary verb must be differentiated from lexical verb

84
Q

Universal language rules

A

-Chomskyans have set out to discover whether there exists a feature that all languages share
-this would support idea that there are genetically endowed, innate rules guiding language acquisition

85
Q

Language principles and parameters

A

-Chomskyans
-universal rules of grammar to all languages: Principles
-certain features that differ between languages only narrowly vary: Parameters
-principle examples: trace erasure principle, projection principle, empty category principle
-parameter examples: null subject parameter, nominal mapping parameter, ergative case parameter

86
Q

Principle of structure-dependency

A

-Grammatical processes function on constituents (word sequences functioning as units, such as phrases and clauses) of sentences, not single words
-linear relations not used in sentence structure
-process sentences in chunks, grammatical rules require that we know how to properly chunk sentences into constituents

87
Q

Perameter of head directionality

A

-languages differ in whether head of phrase comes first or last
-head is subject of phrase
-The bee from outside flew into the classroom last thursday
-English is is ‘head-initial’ language, head comes first
-japanese is ‘head-final’ language, subject of verb phrases comes last