Neural Concepts and Representation Flashcards
2 types of declarative (explicit) memory?
Semantic (facts)
Episodic (events)
4 types of implicit / non-declarative memory?
Priming
Procedural (IQ)
Conditioning
Non - associative (habituation)
What is semantic memory?
Database of conceptual knowledge, what ‘things’ are, their properties, their name, etc.
E.g. cat = 4 legged furry animal, meows.
Shared between us all so that we can communicate – we may not have exactly the same mental image of a cat, but we all know it’s specific features, so allows us to get the mental picture.
Conceptual knowledge is highly shared amongst people and sometimes it has strong cultural links
Conceptual knowledge is part of which type of memory?
Semantic
______ knowledge is highly shared amongst people and sometimes it has strong cultural links
Conceptual
2 types of Conceptual (semantic) mental representation?
Analogical
Symbolic
What is analogical representation?
Picture-like, cartoonish, resembles the object.
(Kosslyn et al 1978) - Analogical conceptual knowledge
Resemblance: _____ layout and _____scanning
Mental images maintain ______ (picture-like)
Spatial layout and mental scanning.
Metrical distances
What is symbolic representation?
A symbol for an object.
Eg. these 3 letters: CAT - doesn’t look like the object but we know what we are referencing.
Which is the more flexible type of semantic (conceptual) memory: symbolic or analogical representation?
Symbolic.
Symbols are more flexible, we can link any idea to them
Gains (2004) asked what is the degree of overlap in the brain when we perceive something visually compared to when we imagine it?
Ss visualized or saw faint drawings of simple objects and judged specific aspects of stimuli
Draw on most of the same mental machinery, however not _________ between pictures. More overlap in _______ and ______ regions (_____ control) than in temporal and occipital.
The two domains engage sensory processes differently (occipital cortex much stronger in visual perception and no additional temporal activation in imagery)
Draw on most of the same mental machinery, however not complete overlap between pictures
More overlap in frontal and parietal regions (executive control) than in temporal and occipital
The two domains engage sensory processes differently (occipital cortex much stronger in visual perception and no additional temporal activation in imagery)
In mental representation, what are categories?
Categories can be thought of as the external content related to the concept. A collection of instances thought of as the same thing.
E.g. Boat, train, car, plane belong to the category modes of transport
In mental representation, what are concepts?
Concepts are the mental content of some object or event. All the knowledge we have about that category.
E.g Modes of transport have engines, are arodynamic, have doors, etc
Without categories we’d have to treat each new instance as if it were one of a kind. Studying categories and concepts has informed us about the _____ structure of ____knowledge (i.e. the mental image of what things are and their properties)
Internal structure of semantic knowledge.
Ross & Murphy devised the sorting task to address what problem?
What defines a category?
Which task revealed that categories are culturally influenced
E.g.
Eggs with milk and butter: dairy food
Eggs with bacon and cereals: breakfast food
The sorting task (Ross and Murphy)
What are important to define categories accruing to Barsalou?
Goals and purposes
What are the basic units of semantic memory?
Concepts
What is the mental lexicon?
Mental lexicon: single words and their meaning (cluster of properties, features)
What are semantic association networks useful for?
4 things
Semantic association networks: useful for remembering, guiding behaviour, reasoning and problem solving
What is the semantic association network?
A knowledge base that represents semantic relations between concepts in a network. This is often used as a form of knowledge representation.
What are the names of the 2 theories of categories?
Classical view & Prototype model
The classical view of categories asserts that the possession of common properties (a set of features) is ____ and _____ to be a member of a category.
Necessary: each feature must be present
Sufficient: If each feature is present that’s all you need
The classical view of categories entails that every member of a category possesses the same ______ and is _____ representative of that category.
Possesses the same characteristics and is equally representative of that category.
The following statement is an example of which theory of categorical mental representation?
To be a member of the category “triangle” the object must possess the features: closed figure with three sides
Classical View
The ‘typicality effect’ is a criticism of which theory of categorical mental representation?
Classical View