PSYC*2650 Chapter 9: Concepts and Generic Knowledge Flashcards
What are concepts?
Lists of necessary and sufficient conditions
How can an individual’s concept knowledge be judged?
By examining their categorization skills
T or F: The terms “concept” and “categorization” refer to the same thing.
False
T or F: Concepts are organized in a hierarchical fashion.
True
In terms of the organization of concepts, what is transitivity?
The ability to upwards in the hierarchy and make inferences about objects in certain categories
In terms of the organization of concepts, what is property inheritance?
Lower level categories inherit higher level properties, but not vice versa
What term describes the idea that members of a category resemble each other?
Family resemblance
In general, what does family resemblance rely on?
Some number of features being shared by any subset of category members (even though these features may not be shared by all members of the category)
T or F: The basis for family resemblance remains the same between subsets of a category.
False. It may shift from one subset of the category to another.
What is a prototype?
The single “best example,” or average, identifying the centre of a category
What is the “ideal” of a family?
A member with all the family’s features
T or F: Each member of a family will share at least some features with “the ideal.”
True
T or F: Everyone has the same prototype for a category.
False. Different people will have different prototypes based on their individual experiences.
What is typicality?
The degree to which a particular category member resembles the prototype
T or F: If there is a lot of similarity/typicality between something and a certain category, it is likely part of that category.
True
What is graded membership?
The idea that some members of a category are more typical and therefore more firmly in a category than others
Do people tend to find “typical” category members more or less attractive?
More attractive
What is the procedure for a sentence verification task?
Participants are given simple sentences and must respond as quickly as possible whether it’s true or false
During a sentence verification task, when there is close similarity between the item mentioned and the prototype for that category, are participants faster or slower when making their decision?
Faster
What are participants asked to do in a production task?
They are asked to name as many examples in a category as possible
Why do the objects named first in a production task yield faster responses in the verification task?
Because they both rely on an object’s proximity to the prototype
What is involved in a rating task?
Participants must evaluate how typical an item is within a category
What is basic-level categorization?
A level of categorization hypothesized as the “natural” and most informative level
In terms of categorization, what is an exemplar?
A specific remembered instance of an item belonging to a category
When discussing categorization, which two theories are often stated in opposition to each other?
- The prototype theory
- The exemplar theory
What type of reasoning draws on knowledge about specific category members?
Exemplar-based reasoning
How is categorization using prototypes similar to categorization using exemplars?
They both involve comparing the resemblance between conceptual knowledge (of either a prototype or exemplar) and the actual object being assessed to determine if it belongs in a category
Do prototypes provide economical representations or information about variability of a category?
Prototypes provide economical representations of what is typical for a category
Do exemplars provide economical representations or information about variability of a category?
Exemplars provide information about variability within a category
T or F: The mix of prototype and exemplar knowledge varies between individuals and concepts.
True
What two factors may influence whether prototype or exemplar knowledge are used?
- The size of the category
- How easily confused category members are with one another
What guides inferences?
A broad set of beliefs
What role do inferences play in categorization?
They help decide how categories are related to each other
T or F: People are more willing to make inferences and generalize attributes from a typical case to the whole category, than they are from an atypical case to a category.
True
What are stereotypes?
A cluster of interwoven beliefs about certain groups
T or F: Stereotypes can serve the same cognitive function as prototypes.
True
What is the out-group homogeneity effect?
Most people are convinced that their “in-group” is remarkably varied, while “out-groups” are homogenous
How does a person’s reasoning typically vary when thinking about natural objects vs artifacts?
People tend to assume more stability and homogeneity when reasoning about natural kinds than when measuring artifacts
What is anomia?
A disorder in which the patient loses their ability to name certain objects
How does the recognition of living and non-living things typically vary?
- Living: Recognition typically depends on perceptual properties
- Non-living: Recognition typically depends on functional properties
What is embodied/grounded cognition?
The proposal that the body’s sensory and action systems play an essential role in all cognitive processes
What is the hub and spoke model?
A proposal for how concepts might be represented in the brain
According to the hub and spoke model, tissue in which brain area serves as the “hub” that connects and integrates information from many other brain areas?
Tissue in the anterior temporal lobes
T or F: In a knowledge network, the associative links connecting nodes to one another are not constituents of knowledge.
False
In a knowledge network, what does the retrieval of information rely on?
Spreading activation
What is a proposition?
The smallest unit of knowledge that can either be true or false
How is the propositional network distinct from the knowledge network?
It attempts to represent knowledge in terms of propositions
Do propositional networks rely on local or distributed representations?
Local
Do connectionists networks rely on local or distributed representations?
Distributed
What is the difference between a local and distributed representation?
- Local: Each node represents one idea, so when thinking about a specific idea, a specific node is activated
- Distributed: Each idea is represented by a pattern of activation across the knowledge network, rather than a certain set of nodes
What is parallel distributed processing?
A system of handling information in which many steps happen at once and various aspects of a problem are represented in a distributed way
T or F: Parallel distributed processing models have an excellent capacity for detecting patterns in the input they receive.
True
Apart from the prototype and exemplar theories, what is another may the objects can be categorized?
By using theory-based concepts
What are theory-based concepts?
An alternate proposal to categorization, stating that reasoning and knowledge can be used to create categories
