Unit 4 (Ch 9 & 10) Flashcards
Knowledge that enables us to recognize objects and events and to make inferences about their properties
Conceptual knowledge
Mental representation used for a variety of cognitive functions
Concept
The process by which things are placed into groups called categories
Categorization
Why are categories useful?
1) Helps us understand individual cases not previously encountered
2) Provides a wealth of general information about an item
3) Allows us to identify the special characteristics of a particular item
The approach that determines category membership based on whether an object has the defining features associated with an object
Definitional Approach to Categorization
Items in a category resemble one another in a number of ways
Family Resemblance
An average representation of the “typical” member of a category
Prototype
Occurs when a category member closely resembles the category prototype
- “Typical” member
High prototypicality
Occurs when a category member does not closely resemble the category prototype
Low prototypicality
Occurs when prototypical objects are processed preferentially
Typicality Effect
What was the result of Smith et al. sentence verification study?
- Highly prototypical objects are judged more rapidly
What was Rosch’s Priming Study?
- Participants were asked to point out the green dot as quickly as possible
- There were two sets of green dots on the screen.
- One set of dots was a brighter & darker green, and the other set was a pastel green
- Results:
- Reaction time was faster for objects rated higher protypicality
- People’s prototypes for “green” matched the darker green rather than the pastel green
The approach that states the concept is represented by multiple examples rather than a single prototye
The Exemplar Approach
What is one similarity between the exemplar approach and the prototype approach?
- Both state that representing a category is not defining it
What are two differences between the exemplar approach and the prototype approach?
1) Representation is not abstract in the exemplar approach
2) The exemplar approach includes descriptions of specific examples
Items in a category that have a large amount of overlap have high ___________
Family Resemblance
The more similar a specific exemplar is to known category member, the faster it will be recognized
Family Resemblance Effect
Exemplars work best for ______ categories; Prototypes work best for ______ categories
Smaller; Larger
To fully understand how people categorize objects, you must consider….
1) Properties of Objects
2) Learning and experience of percievers
Conceptual hierarchy with concepts as nodes in an associative network
Structure/Representation
Concepts and their properties are stored at the highest level possible
Cognitive Economy
More highly interrelated concepts are retrieved and judged true more rapidly than those with a lower degree of relatedness
Semantic Relatedness Effect
What was Meyer and Schvaneveldt’s lexical decision task?
- Participants read stimuli and are asked to say as quickly as possible whether the item is a word or not
- Example:
- Glurb (no) - Bread (yes)
- Example:
- The key variable was the association between pairs of words
- Results:
- Reaction time was faster for closely associated pairs
Priming
- Reaction time was faster for closely associated pairs
How does strength of association develop?
Repeated pairings of two events
The basic unit of knowledge is best represented as a _____
Proposition
The smallest unit of knowledge that can be asserted
- The smallest unit on which a true/false judgment can be made
Proposition
Which approach?
- Creating computer models for representing cognitive processes
- Parallel distributed processing
- Knowledge represented in the distributed activity of many units
- Weights determine at each connection how strongly an incoming signal will activate the next unit
Connectionist Approach
