Representation of Knowledge Flashcards
Multimodal Hypothesis
The theory that knowledge is represented in multiple perceptual and motor modalities.
People remember the meaning of what they experience (not the details) and this meaning is retained in one or another perceptual or motor modality -> either the modality in which the information was first represented or a modality to which the person has converted the information
Contrast with amodal hypothesis.
Perceptual Symbol System
A system for representing information in which the terms are tied to particular perceptual modalities (vision, audition, etc).
Contrast with amodal symbol system
Amodal symbol system
That the elements within the system are inherently non-perceptual. You might perceive a picture or a sentence, but the representation is abstracted away from the verbal or visual modality.
Proposition
The smalles unit of knowledge that can stand as a separate assertion (the smallest unit that one can meaningfully judge as true or false)
Propositional Representation
A representation of the meaning of something as a set of propositions. Each separate element of our propositional representations must correspond to a unit of meaning that can be judged as true or false
argument
An entity or item involved in a proposition. It typically refers to nouns or specific elements like Denmark, Obama, dog, etc.
In the sentence “Gordon cooks dinner” - the arguments are “Gordon” and “dinner”. “cooks” is the relation
Prototype theories
Models proposing that we store a single prototype of a category member and
classify specific objects or events in terms of their similarity to the prototype. These prototypes are averages of individual members of the category
Contrast with exemplar theories
Default values
The typical values for a slot in a schema representation.
Eg. we might have a default value labelled “feathers” for birds.
Embodied Cognition
Embodied cognition is the viewpoint that the mind can only be understood by considering the human body and how it interacts with the environment.
It is action-based, meaning that thinking involves the motor systems, not just abstract reasoning.
Exemplar theories
Exemplar theories are theories holding that concepts are represented by specific instances in our experience and that new instances are categorized based on their similarity to the stored representations, not on a central concept like a prototype.
Contrast to prototype theories (storing a single prototype of what a member of a category is like, classifying specific objects/ events in terms of similarity to the prototype)
Isa link
A link that indicates the superset of a category in a semantic network or schema.
Hierarchy: Concepts are organized in a hierarchy, with specific items linked to broader categories (e.g., “A robin ISA bird”)
Mirror neurons
Mirror neurons are specialized brain cells that activate both when an individual performs an action and when they observe someone else performing the same action.
They were found in the motor cortex of monkeys
Mnemonic technique
The mnemonic technique is a learning strategy designed to improve memory retention and retrieval.
It involves creating associations between new information and something more familiar or easier to remember.
“Mnemonic” means “memory assisting”.
Multimodal hypothesis
The theory that knowledge is represented in multiple perceptual and motor modalities.
Contrast with amodal hypothesis
The theory suggests that there is a mechanism for translating in either direction between the meaning represented in one modality and the meaning represented in other modality.
What are relations in the propositional representation theory proposed by Kintsch (1974)?
Relations organize the arguments in a sentence and assert connections between the different elements in a sentence.
Schema
Schemas are like templates helping us organize information. They represent concepts in terms of supersets, parts, and other slot-value pairs.
Scripts
Scripts are event schemas containing the typical actions involved in a specific event.
Semantic Networks
A semantic network is a way of representing knowledge in a hierarchy of categorical facts
Slots in schemas
Slots in schemas are attributes within category members. Slots are filled with one or more values of that attribute. E.g. the category member “house” has the slot “materials”, which contains the values: “wood”, “brick, “stone”
What are representations in the mind?
In our mind, we re-create images, which are a “copy” of what we perceive from the real world.
What was Wanner experiment (1968) about?
Wanner tested participants ability to discriminate instructions from memory based on meaning or style. Participants showed superior memory for the meaning of the instructions rather than the style of it. It suggests that after processing a linguistic message, people usually remember just its meaning and not its exact wording.
What is the difference between type distractor and token distractor?
Type distraction - Changes the meaningful parts of a stimulus.
Token distractions - Changes irrelevant parts of a stimulus (like style).
What is the point Nickerson and Adams penny experiment?
It suggest that without giving special attention to daily life, people tend to miss little details from every-day objects.
What are categories in knowledge representation and how are they structured?
Mental groupings or classifications used to organize objects, concepts, and experiences based on shared characteristics.
Categories are organized hierarchically from general to specific, like “animal” → “dog” → “poodle”.
Amodal hypothesis
That meaning is not stored in a particular modality. We store a concept in some abstract (non-perceptual) way independent of any of the modalities.
Constrast with multimodal hypothesis.
Dual-code theory
Theory that posits that information is represented in combined verbal and visual codes.
When we hear a sentence, we also develop a visual image of what it describes. The verbal and visual codes work together to help us understand, remember, and reason about the world.
