Chapter 9: Concepts and Generic Knowledge

Match each description to its level of categorization.

"It's an upholstered armchair." = subordinated. "It's a piece of furniture." = superordinate. "It's a chair." = basic-level.

If decisions about category membership depends on resemblance, then membership is a____ decision. Categories have ____

"More" or "less." Graded membership. Typicality.

Based on this hypothetical structure for knowledge about animals, how many connections would you have to traverse to confirm that "a collie eats food"?

3 links.

What is a "defining feature"?

A feature that all category members must have to belong to the category.

In connectionist models, ideas are represented by ___ across the network. In other words, connectionist models rely on ___.

A pattern of activation. Distributed representations.

Place these sentences in order from fastest to slowest in terms of how quickly participants would respond in a sentence verification task. Base your rankings on the model proposed by Collins and Quillian (1969).

A robin is a robin. A terrier is a dog. An alley cat is an animal. A collie is a living thing.

Match the term to its definition.

A system of handling information in which many steps happen at once and information is represented across many nodes = parallel distributed processing. Information is represented by a pattern of simultaneous activity across many nodes = distributed representation. Information is encoded in a small number of identifiable nodes = local representation.

Which of these statements about judgments of resemblance are true and which are false?

An object that doesn't resemble the prototype can still belong to the category = true. Some properties are essential across all categories = false. A given belief can influence judgments across many categories = true. Background knowledge is only relevant for "oddball" cases like mutilated lemons = false.

Based on this data from a sentence verification task, in which order would these items most likely have been produced in a production task?

Apple, peach, grape, avocado, pumpkin.

According to the model proposed by Collins and Quillian (1969), participants confirm that "an ostrich is a bird" ____ they confirm that "canary is a bird."

As quickly as

Why would telling participants that Category A includes objects that can serve as substitutes for a hammer make sorting a group of objects into the two categories faster and easier?

Correct Answer(s): It makes the categories' features seem less arbitrary. Your understanding of hammers can help you sort.

What can we learn from rating tasks?

Correct: Participants easily make rating judgments. Ratings are fairly consistent across participants.

Why is categorization so important? For instance, what do you know or can you now do if I tell you that this is a photo of a dog, Milo?

Correct: Apply general knowledge to the new cases. Draw broad conclusions from this specific case.

In order to judge resemblance, you must be able to focus on ___ properties and not be misled by ___ properties.

Essential. Trivial.

In deciding whether the object in front of you is a lemon, which of these properties are essential?

Essential: It grew on a tree. It is genetical a lemon.

Wittgenstein proposed that category members share

Family resemblance.

The notion of ___ suggests that we can identify a category by specifying its ___, against which all membership judgments can then be made.

Family resemblance. Prototype.

Even the simplest concepts require multifaceted representations in our minds. Which of these factors are included in these representations?

Included: prototypes beliefs about the concept exemplars beliefs about relationships

People generally believe that ___ have relatively stable properties and more homogeneity than___.

Natural kinds. Artifacts.

Which of these items are propositions?

Propositions: Dogs love cheese. Bananas are vegetables. Some books include pictures.

Identify the advantages that prototypes provide and the advantages that exemplars provide for categorical reasoning.

Prototype Advantage: Provide a quick summary of the category.

Identify each scenario as an example of prototype-based reasoning or exemplar-based reasoning.

Prototype-Based: "Nobody wins or scores or anything like that? Nope, doesn't sound like a game to me." "I haven't seen one before, but that looks pretty vegetable-y to me." Exemplar-Based: Your neighbor's new pet looks a lot like other cats that you remember seeing. It must be a cat, too. "That doesn't look like any bug that I've ever seen. It must be something else."

Based on the prototype theory, judgments about category members that are close to the prototype will be made___, ___, and rated as ____ typical than distant category members.

Quickly First More

Which of these propositions are represented by this diagram and which are not?

Represented: Birds live in trees. Furniture is made of wood.

While flipping through a magazine, Janice sees a photo of this creature. She thinks, "This looks an awful lot like a gnu, but it's bigger and blue than other gnus that I've seen. I bet it's still a gnu, though." What did Janice do to reach this conclusion?

She decided that color was not a critical feature for the "gnu category."

Which of these are true of the relationship between typicality judgments and judgments of category membership?

The greater the typicality, the more likely the membership in the category. Typicality judgments are often entirely separate from category judgments.

According to ___ model, the ___ are responsible for connecting and integrating information from other brain areas. Other information (the ____) is represented in more-specialized regions.

The hub and spoke. Anterior temporal lobe. "spokes"

What is the problem with defining our concept of dog: "A dog is a creature that has fur and four legs and barks"?

There are no defining features for most concepts, only shared attributes.

How much does a lawnmower resemble a plum?

They share many properties, but resemblance is low.

Identify the true and false statements about conceptual knowledge.

True Typically effects arise from comparisons against prototypes and exemplars.

Which of these statements about parallel-distributed processing (PDP) models are true and which are false?

Very good at generalizing to new variations = true. Rely mostly on local representations = false. Detect patterns only if the range of variations is small = false. Very powerful = true.

Which of these findings cannot be explained by the memory network model proposed by Collins and Quillian?

Why typically influences sentence verification times.

How would a child likely answer this question? "Is it possible to turn_______________?"

Yes: A raccoon into a raccoon that behaves like a skunk. A toaster into a coffeepot.

While at a party, one of the guests jumps into the pool fully clothed. Select the reasons why you are likely to categorize this guest as "drunk." If none of these are valid reasons, select the "None of the above" button.

You have certain beliefs about how drunks tend to behave. You can predict what a drunk person might do from your understanding of alcohol and its consequences.

Jamal is serving on a jury. The defendant has been charged with stalking. Which of these are most likely to influence Jamal's judgment in reaching a verdict of guilty or not guilty?

the typicality of the crime = influential. his "theory" of stalking = influential. the legal definition of "stalking" = influential. his beliefs about juries = not influential.