Week 7 Flashcards
What is a prototype ?
How we mentally construct a concept; categorizing things we see
Name 3 pieces of evidence indicating that people may think about categories in terms of prototypes
- Ratings of representativeness - how representatice something is of a category or a concept
- Sentence verification - more representative of concept/category -> faster at saying it is true; more time comparing instance to prototype since it doesn’t match
- Listing Examples - more similar to our prototype or easily accessible recalled faster
What is the difference between an exemplar and a prototype ?
- Exemplar - specific instance or example from memory (experience)
- Prototype - mental construct or representation
What are the 3 levels of organization of category knowledge and the name of the overall structure ?
Semantic Networks
* Superordinate level - more general
* Basic level - default way we think of a concept
* Subordinate level - more specific
Do people always think about categories in terms of their basic level ?
- No, not always do people think about categories in terms of their basic level
- If they are at a expert in a certain thing, they might think of things in a subordinate level rather than basic
How does the multi-factoral approach to category knowledge inform the sensory-functional hypothesis ?
By demonstrating how people tend to use sensory features when thinking about animate things and function features when thinking of inanimate objects
Accodring to the semantic category approach how is conceptural knowledge represented in the brain ?
Different parts of the brain are processing different features but the processing of any given concept is distributed among the brain since it is multi-dimensional. Essentially, there is not one part of the brain in charge of or representing a concept
Describe the embodied approach to category knowledge
When thinking of a concept, your brain stimulates you doing something whether or not you are doing it. For example, if shown a picture or name of a hammer your premotor is active since you think about how you would use the hammer even if you aren’t using it
How does the distributed-plus-hub view of category knowledge help to explaine deficits that often accompany semantic dementia ?
The distributed-plus-hub view explains how the feautes that are distributed across the brain come together and form one whole which makes us have a coherent sense of a concept in our ATL. This is where all our general knowledge is tied together and a neural deficit in our ATL causes semantic dementia to occur.
