PSYU2239 Cognitive Psych - Semantic Memory Flashcards
Define episodic and semantic memory - and are they part of short term or long term memory?
They are both part of long term memory under the category of declarative memory (factual information).
Semantic memory: conceptual knowledge, linguistic knowledge, memories for general facts. Dogs have 4 legs, a tail and fur.
Episodic memory: memories for events in specific temporal and spatial context i.e. I had muesli for brekkie this morning.
What is the semantic memory test called the sentence verification task?
It is a test where a sentence is stated and you visually read it and as quickly as possible you type Y or N. Reaction time is the DV.
What is the hierarchical network model (Collins & Quillian)
Concepts are organised in an hierarchy.
Definition. Hierarchical models for learning and memory make use of a network of modules for solving a cognitive task such as object recognition. The modules are constructed with multiple child nodes being connected hierarchically to a parent node.
Hierarchical network model made a claim of cognitive economy, explain this concept.
Property attribute is stored nonredundant at the highest (most general) level.
So if you say Da Vinci has knees, Da Vinci is a human being, humans have knees.
So that’s the idea of cognitive economy that properties are
not represented at every single level, but only at the
most general level that that property applies to.
What are some criticism of the hierarchical network model?
Reaction times do not always mirror hierarchical relationship i.e. dog is an animal < dog is a mammal
Does not explain within-category typicality effects i.e. a canary is a bird < an ostrich is a bird
Does not explain negative (NO) judgments are not faster for closer concepts, in fact the opposite i.e. a canary is a salmon < a canary is an ostrich
Discuss the spreading activation model (Collins & Loftus)
Network model
Concepts are organised non-hierarchically - explains the lack of hierarchical effect.
Distances between concepts vary in associative strength - explains the typicality effect (bird-canary<bird-ostrich)
Activation of a concept spreads to other concepts linked to it - explains the semantic priming effect
Still does not explain how negative judgements are made.
Semantic priming effect is used as a tool to study semantic memory?
It is used to study
Organisation of semantic memory
Automaticity eg unconscious processing/masked priming
What is semantic priming effect?
Semantic priming refers to facilitation in the processing of a word when it is preceded by a related word. Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971) first demonstrated this effect for response times in the lexical decision task (LDT), in which participants make speeded judgments categorizing letter strings as words or nonwords.
What are the types of priming
Types of Priming in Psychology
There are several different types of priming in psychology. Each one works in a specific way and may have different effects.
Positive and Negative Priming
Positive and negative priming describes how priming influences processing speed. Positive priming makes processing faster and speeds up memory retrieval, while negative priming slows it down.2
Semantic Priming
Semantic priming involves words that are associated in a logical or linguistic way. The earlier example of responding to the word “banana” more rapidly after being primed with the word “yellow” is an example of semantic priming.1
Associative Priming
Associative priming involves using two stimuli that are normally associated with one another. For example, “cat” and “mouse” are two words that are often linked with one another in memory, so the appearance of one of the words can prime the subject to respond more rapidly when the second word appears.3
Repetition Priming
Repetition priming occurs when a stimulus and response are repeatedly paired. Because of this, subjects become more likely to respond in a certain way more quickly each time the stimulus appears.4
Perceptual Priming
Perceptual priming involves stimuli that have similar forms. For example, the word “goat” will evoke a faster response when it is preceded by the word “boat” because the two words are perceptually similar.5
Conceptual Priming
Conceptual priming involves a stimulus and response that are conceptually related. Words such as “seat” and “chair” are likely to show priming effects because they are in the same conceptual category.6
Masked Priming
Masked priming involves part of the initial stimulus being obscured in some way, such as with hash marks. Even though the entire stimulus is not visible, it still evokes a response.7
What are the classic theories of semantic memory organisation?
Sentence verification experiments
Network models: (localist representation)
-Hierarchical network model
-Spreading activation model
Feature comparison model: distributed representation
Explain the feature comparison model and give an example of a concept and represented terms ie concept of “sheep”.
Feature comparison model assumes concept is represented as a collection of distributed features.
So distributed feature models assume that concepts are not represented as a single node, OK, but rather as a collection of distributed features.
Any theory of concept formation according to which a decision as to whether a particular item or element belongs to a class proceeds by comparing the features (1) of the item with those of the class. For example, the theory posits that a person decides whether a particular animal is a cat by checking it for various features associated with cats, such as whiskers, a tail, a propensity to mew, and so on. FCM abbrev.
In semantic memory, according to the feature comparison model, there is a two stage decision process. Discuss the two stage decision process.
In the lecture, they discussed an experiment where a patient, JBR in his semantic memory, had patterns of category-specific impairments. How can this be explained?
In the lecture, they discussed an experiment where a patient, JBR in his semantic memory, had patterns of category-specific impairments. Name the two associated theories and what they are about.
Perceptual-functional theory (Warrington and Shallice) Category-specific impairments reflect different types of property.
The claim of perceptual functional theory is that these category specific impairments reflect different types of properties that
distinguish between category members and, more specifically with living things.
PERCEPTUAL - They are distinguished from each other on the basis of perceptual and in particular visual features. So lion and tiger and leopard differ in terms of lion is plain, tiger is striped leopard is spotted, so it’s they’re distinguished on the basis of visual features. JBR had problem with visual processing.
FUNCTIONAL - Non-living things are distinguished from each other on the basis of functional properties, hammer, wrench, screwdriver, all handheld but different actions hence functional.
**This theory does not explain impairments such as the meaning of: it appears in autumn, its is edible after cooking. These types of concepts is where the hub theory comes in.
Distributed-plus-hub (hub and spokes theory) - there is a hub for each concept or object in addition to distributed modality specific information. Builds on the perceptual functional theory in that you can have these different properties, which are modality specific.
And the hub and spokes model says there is a hub. Modality in variant or it’s modality independent. It’s not tied to one specific sensory modality. That integrates the knowledge about an object or a concept.
HUB - abstract representations containing core knowledge of concepts.
SPOKES - modality specific i.e. visual, auditory etc
What is meant by modality in cognitive psychology?
In psychology and neuroscience, and for some authors in philosophy, modality refers to the level of sensory experience (e.g., auditory, visual, tactile, etc.). Some authors see a clear association between situated and embodied cognition and a modal representation of categories.
