Conceptual Knowledge

What did Ross quillian believe about semantic neural networks?

The network consists of nodes that are connected by links. Each node represents a category or concept, and concepts are placed in the network so that related concepts are connected. In addition, a number of properties are indicated for each concept.

how does categorization help us learn about our category?

helps understand what is happening in the environment, it also plays an essential role in enabling us to take action. ex: to spread jam on bread, you must recognize the jam jar, the bread, and the knife; realize their relevant properties (bread is soft unless it is toasted; knives are rigid, and jam is sticky); and know how to grasp the knife handle with the right grip to scrape the jam from its jar

What is unique about the special basic level?

it is different for everyone depending on their knowledge

what the three levels of categories?

superordinate level (known as global level) - furniture Basic Level - table Subordinate level (specific level) - kitchen

What do the links connecting the concepts indicate?

they are related to each other in the mind. Thus, the model shown in Figure 9.12 indicates that there is an association in the mind between canary and bird, and between bird and animal (indicated by the dashes along the links in Figure 9.12)

What are questions about basic properties of categories?

1) How are different objects, events, or ideas assigned to a particular category? 2) How can categories be defined? 3) Why do we say that "not all things in categories are created equal"?

What questions are considered about the network approach to categorization?

1) How did an early network approach called the semantic network approach use networks of connected concepts to explain how these concepts are organized in the mind? 2) How does a more modern network approach called connectionism describe how networks can be "trained" to recognize specific objects?

what questions can conceptual knowledge answer?

1) When we encounter a new item or event in the world, how do we come to know what kind of thing it is? 2) How do we tell which items in our environment are horses, bicycles, trees, lakes, newspapers? 3) How do we tell dolphins from sharks, or planets from stars? What makes a lemon a lemon? 4) What are the various kinds of 'things' in the world?

cognitive economy?

A feature of some semantic network models in which properties of a category that are shared by many members of a category are stored at a higher level node in the network. For example, the property "can fly" would be stored at the node for "bird" rather than at the node for "canary."

Connectionist network?

A network of units (like neurons) that are connected to one another and transfer information between each other (like axons). Made up of input units, hidden units, and output units as well as connection weights.

What is the dictionary definition of knowledge?

Acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation

what objects are easy to use the definitional approach with and which are not?

Definitions work well for some things, such as geometric objects. Thus, defining a square as "a plane figure having four equal sides, with all internal angles the same" works. However, for most natural objects (such as birds, trees, and plants) and many human-made objects (like chairs), definitions do not work well at all.

What is the wikipedia definition of knowledge?

Familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, such as facts, information, descriptions or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning.

Example of Prototype?

For example, the prototype for the category "birds" might be based on some of the birds you usually see, such as sparrows, robins, and blue jays, but doesn't necessarily look exactly like any one of them. Thus, the prototype is not an actual member of the category but is an "average" representation of the category

Types of input units?

Input units are stimuli presented by the experimenter Hidden units send signals to output units

what is a prediction of the model proposed by Collins?

One prediction is that the time it takes for a person to retrieve information about a concept should be determined by the distance that must be traveled through the network. - Thus, the model predicts that when using the sentence verification technique it should take longer to answer "yes" to the statement "A canary is an animal" than to "A canary is a bird." - This prediction follows from the fact, indicated by the dashed lines in Figure 9.12, that it is necessary to travel along two links to get from "canary" to "animal" but only one to get to "bird."

Hierarchical organization?

Organization of categories in which larger, more general categories are divided into smaller, more specific categories. These smaller categories can, in turn, be divided into even more specific categories to create a number of levels.

Family resemblance?

Proposed by Wittgenstein who explained Family resemblance refers to the idea that things in a particular category resemble one another in a number of ways. Thus, instead of setting definite criteria that every member of a category must meet, the family resemblance approach allows for some variation within a category.

spreading activation?

Spreading activation is activity that spreads out along any link that is connected to an activated node. For example, moving through the network from "robin" to "bird" activates the node at "bird" and the link we use to get from robin to bird

Results from Rosch experiment?

The 1.18 rating for sparrow reflects the fact that most people consider a sparrow to be a good example of a bird (Figure 9.4a). The 4.53 rating for penguin and 6.15 rating for bat reflect the fact that penguins and bats are not considered good examples of birds

why does primining happen?

When participants hear the word green, they imagine a "good" (highly prototypical) green (Figure 9.7a). The principle behind priming is that the prime will facilitate the participants' response to a stimulus if it contains some of the information needed to respond to the stimulus. This apparently occurs when the good greens are presented in the test , but not when the poor greens are presented Thus, the results of the priming experiments support the idea that participants create images of prototypes in response to color names. Table 9.1 summarizes the various ways that prototypicality affects behavior.

typicality effect

ability to judge highly prototypical objects more rapidly is called the typicality effect.

Connectionism?

an approach to creating computer models for representing cognitive pro- cesses.

semantic network approach?

an approach to understanding how concepts are organized in the mind that proposes that concepts are arranged in networks

how do exemplars and prototypes work together?

as we initially learn about a category, we may average exemplars into a prototype; then, later in learning, some of the exemplar information becomes stronger

What was the first semantic neural network?

based on the pioneering work of Ross Quillian who wanted to develop a computer model of human memory.

how are neural semantic networks hierarchical models?

because it consists of levels arranged so that more specific concepts, such as "canary" and "salmon," are at the bottom, and more general concepts are at higher levels.

Tanaka Bird Experiment?

bird experts and non bird experts had to identify 4 types of birds - experts classify them by their species non experts called them birds

How did Collins account for problems associated with cognitive economy?

by adding exceptions at the lower level - for example not all bird can fly so any identifiable birds that can not fly will be stated not able to fly

Advantage of the exemplar effect?

by using real examples, it can more easily take into account atypical cases such as flightless birds. Rather than comparing a penguin to an "average" bird, - ability to take into account individual cases means that the exemplar approach doesn't discard information that might be useful later. - Thus, penguins, ostriches, and other birds that are not typical can be represented as exemplars, rather than becoming lost in the overall average that creates a prototype. The exemplar approach can also deal more easily with variable categories like games. Although it is difficult to imagine what the prototype might be for a category that contains football, computer games, solitaire, marbles, and golf, the exemplar approach requires only that we remember some of these varying examples.

relationship between concepts and categories?

concepts provide the rules for creating categories. Thus, the mental representation for "cat" would affect what animals we place in the "cat" category.

Concepts?

defined in a number of ways, including "the mental representation of a class or individual" and "categories of objects, events, and abstract ideas"

Connection weight?

determines how signals sent from one unit either increase or decrease the activity of the next unit. These weights correspond to what happens at a synapse that transmits signals from one neuron to another

Criticism of Cognitive economy?

evidence that people may, in fact, store specific properties of concepts (like "has wings" for "canary") right at the node for that concept

Priming example?

in an experiment conducted by Rosch participants heard the colour green and were shown three conditioned - one had two green circles - one had two light green circles one had two different colours that were not green results showed the the green condition was processes the fastest when cued.

Category?

includes all possible examples of a particular concept. Thus, the category "cats" includes tabbies, Siamese cats, Persian cats, wildcats, leopards, and so on.

Exemplar approach to categorization?

involves determining whether an object is similar to other objects by using exemplars Exemplars are actual members of the category that a person has encountered in the past. Thus, if a person has encountered sparrows, robins, and blue jays in the past, each of these would be an exemplar for the category "birds."

why did connectionism gain respect from researchers?

it is inspired by how information is represented in the brain; and (2) it can explain a number of findings, including how concepts are learned and how damage to the brain affects people's knowledge about concepts.

conceptual knowledge?

knowledge that enables us to recognize objects and events and to make inferences about their properties.

Rosch experiment?

made participants rate on a 7 point scale how good a presented picture was at being an example of the category

Prototype approach to categorization?

membership in a category is determined by comparing the object to a prototype that represents the category - prototype means typical member of the category

Problem with definitional approach?

not all members of everyday society have the same features, as well even objects and phrases have different variations - chair can come in many shapes - games include many things sports, video games, board games etc

Priming?

occurs when presentation of one stimulus facilitates the response to another stimulus that usually follows closely in time.

parallel distributed processing

propose that concepts are represented by activity that is distributed across a network.

How does the exemplar approach explain the typicality effect?

proposing that objects that are like more of the exemplars are classified faster. Thus, a sparrow is similar to many bird exemplars, so it is classified faster than a penguin, which is similar to few bird exemplars. This is basically the same as the idea of family resemblance, described for prototypes, which states that "better" objects will have higher family resemblance.

Why is the basic level special?

the basic level is psychologically special because going above it (to global) results in a large loss of information (9 features at the basic versus 3 at the global level) and going below it (to specific) results in little gain of information (9 features versus 10.3). Here is another demonstration that is relevant to the idea of a basic level.

what objects are usually named first?

the most prototypical members of the category

Categorization?

the process of which things are placed into categories

Activation of units depends on?

the signal that originates in the input units and (2) the connection weights throughout the network

Criticisms of Collins Experiment?

the theory couldn't explain the typicality effect, in which reaction times for statements about an object are faster for more typical members of a category than for less typical members Thus, the statement "A canary is a bird" is verified more quickly than "An ostrich is a bird," - but the model predicts equally fast reaction times because "canary" and "ostrich" are both one node away from "bird."

Good examples vs bad examples?

there is a strong relationship between family resemblance and prototypicality. Thus, good examples of the category "furniture," such as chair and sofa, share many attributes with other members of this category; poor examples, like mirror and telephone, do not.

sentence verification technique?

used to determine how rapidly people could answer questions about an object's category. certain objects are easy to answer such as is an apple a fruit vs if pomegranate is a fruit

typicality?

variations within categories - high typicality means that a category member closely resembles the category prototype - low typicality means that a category member does not closely resemble the category prototype.

definitional approach to categorization?

we can decide whether something is a member of a category by determining whether a particular object meets the definition of the category.

How are concepts related to questions

we can say that the concept "cat" is the answer to the question "What is a cat?" If your answer is that a cat is an animal that is furry, meows, can be petted, moves, and catches mice, you will have described some aspects of the concept "cat"