Week 6 - Long Term Memory Flashcards
describe what role categories and concepts play in cognition
Category - a set of objects that can be treated as equivalent in some way (eg: dogs)
Concept - the mental representations we form of categories (eg: animals)
Concepts are organised into categories to help compress data/info, help understand the world and communicate easier.
describe, with examples, the three levels of category hierarchies and what is meant by the notion of ‘typicality’
Subordinate - a simple chair
Basic level - a slightly more complex chair
Superordinate level - item of furniture (experts discuss things at this level, mammal instead of animal)
Typicality - a level of typicality that is in a grey area and causes confusion about the category membership which falls into that area.
Hierarchies - Concrete categories are nestled inside larger, abstract categories.
describe the differences between prototype and exemplar theories of concepts
Prototype theory - an abstract representation that is derived from the ‘centre of mass’ of the features of all the objects in the category.
Exemplar theory - a concrete representation, a specific instance that happens to be the most active in memory. More typical members tend to be most active.
identify what brain areas are thought to be involved in declarative (cognitive) versus procedural (stimulus-response, ‘habit’-based) memory.
Declarative (explicit) memory - includes memories of events from the past (episodic or autobiographical memory) and knowledge you’ve learned about the world (semantic). In MEDIAL TEMPORAL LOBE, DIENCEPHALON.
Non-Declarative (implicit) Memory - encompasses diverse, unconscious learning and memory abilities, including skills (procedural memory) and simple learning (habituation and sensitisation)
Procedural memory and habits - BASAL GANGLIA
Priming - NEOCORTEX
Simple classical conditioning - AMYGDALA, CEREBELLUM
Habituation, sensitisation - REFLEX PATHWAYS.
