Cognitive Psychology Study Guide Final Exam
Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Chapter 9: Language 1
Chapter 10: Language 2
Chapter 11: Problem Solving
General Knowledge Chapter 8 Episodic memory : Contains information about events that hapenned to us, implies a personal experience.Semantic Memory : Organized knowledge about the world. Does not specify how we acquired that information.Lexical, Language Knowledge
Category : Set of objects that belong together
Concept : Mental representation of a category
Situated Cognition Approach : We make use of information in the immediate environment or situation. Our knowledge depends on the context that surrounds us.Context in which we learned the info **
Categories : Reduces space required for storage
The Prototype Approach and Semantic Memory
Prototype : The item that is the best, most typical example of a category.
Decide whether an item belongs to the category by comparing to prototype.Members of a category differ in their prototypicality Eleonor Rosch - All members of a category are not equal Graded structure : Starts with most prototypical of the structure and continues on through the category's nonprototypical members.
- Prototypes are supplied as examples of a category
- Prototypes are judged more quickly than nonprototypes, after semantic priming
Some objects are judged to be better of a concept than other items If someone asks you to name a member of a category, you will probably name a prototype.Typicality effect: People judge prototypical items faster than non prototypical items.
Semantic priming effect : People respond faster to an item if it was preceded by an item with similar meaning. Facilitates more to prototypes than non-prototypes.
Study with color : Priming was only helpful with prototypical colors (red)
PSYC 364 Cognitive Psychology Final Exam 1 / 3
- Prototypes share attributes of family resemblance category
Family resemblance : Means that no single attribute is shared by all members of a concept, however each example has at least one attribute in common at least one example of the concept.E.g. asking students to rank car, wheelchair as means of transportation.Superordinate-level categories : Means that they are higher-level or more general categories ''Furniture ; Animal''
Basic-level categories: are moderately specific. ''Chair, dog, screwdriver.''
Subordinate-level categories : Lower-level or more specific categories. ''Desk chair, golden retriever.'' Basic level categories are not prototypes. Prototype is the best example of a category. A basic- level category refers to a category that is neither too general nor too specific.Basic level categories are more useful than superordinate and subordinate levels.
Priming methodology : What color is (...) white...) milk
Prime : Stimulus presented first with the hopes of influencing what is presented next.
Target : Stimulus that follows the prime
By 2 processes: (1) Facilitation (2) Inhibition
Declarative Memory : Explicit. Facts, Events
Non Declarative Memory : Implicit ; Skills & Habits, Priming, Simple Classical Conditionning Basic Level Special Statuses
- Basic level names are used to identify objects.
Basic level information gives enough information without being overly detailed.People produce the basic-level names faster than either the superordinate than subordinate names.If they remember superordinate and subordinate terms, they are later tested for recall and remembered at the basic level status.
Prototype theories : Natural Categories
- Basic-level names are more likely to produce the semantic priming effect.
- Different levels of categorization activate different regions of the brain
Eleanor Rosch Researchers present name of an object, + two pictures Participants must decide if the two pictures are the same Priming is effective because presentation of the world allows you to create mental representation of this world. This mental representation helps to make a quicker decision Results : priming with basic-level names was helpful, but not with superordinate items (such as fruit) bc when we hear the word fruit, the priming occurs of a general representation of fruit, not a judgement about apples.
Subordinate are more liekly than basic-level terms to activate the parietal region of the brain.(Parietal lobe is active when you perform a visual search) The prototype approach helps us understand two kinds of love relationship 2 / 3
- The prototype of compassionate love
''Focuses on providing support to a romantic partner, as well as close friends, and even strangers''
Least prototypical : feeling protective toward the person, sacrifice & pure
More prototypical : Trust, honesty & caring
Typicality effect: Occurs when a person makes a judgement about typical items (prototypes) more quickly than atypical items (nonprototypes)
- The prototype of ''being there'' for a romantic partner
''Knowledge of Indicators Scale'' - high scores on this test if they noticed mood changes, low scores if they noticed irrelevant stuff like ''don't mind being intimate in public''
validity in this test : social sensitivity
(Turan & Horowitz validity) Tested a third group of student with confederate. Asked students to recall specific relationships problem. High correlation : The students who scored high on the Knowledge of Indicators scale also tended to remember the relationship problems that the confederate cited.Advantage of the prototype approach: Groups information together that loosely structured. Can be applied to relationships, inanimate objects and nonsocial categories.Problems : Concepts can be unstable and variable. We also often do store specific information about individual examples of a category.
- The Examplar Approach and The Semantic Memory
We first learn information about some specfic examples of a concept; then we classify each new stimulus by deciding how closely it resembles all of those specific examples.Semantic memory : Includes general knowledge, how things are related to one another 1) Organize objects 2) Make inferences 3) Decide which objects are similar Chunking When people are given one bit of information, tend to make organisation & other inferences from it -Different classes in school
-In studying : Dividing material that there needs to be known
Situated cognition approach : Our knowledge depends on the context surrounding us
Examplar : stored examples in memory
Concept of a dog would include information about dogs you have known (Contrast prototype version would argue that your concept of a dog is based on an idealized representation of a dog) Study Heit and Barsalou : When people make judgements about animals, do they base these judgements on specific exemplars or general prototypes?Prototype approach suggests that our categories consider only the most typical items.In this approach, we can forget about about the less typical items, and our categories would not be substantially changed.
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