PSY270 Part 3
What is induction in the exemplar-based approach of categorization?
"Robin has X, therefore a penguin should also have X" Same logic here... more examples of birds will be similar to robin, promoting the likelihood that people will believe a fact about robins is true of the whole category. More examples are promoting the Robin = robin is high prototypicality = quicker
What are concepts?
"The mental representation of a class or individual" (Smith, 1989) and "the meaning of objects, events, and abstract ideas" (Kiefer & Pulvermüller, 2012). To express this in concrete terms, 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, moves, and eats mice, you will have described your concept of "cat"
Explain the study by Media and colleagues in 1982 about burlosis?
- Participants learned about "Burlosis" by studying the example cases (Burlosis was a fake medical condition). The symptoms of burlosis are: Swollen eyelids, splotches on ears, discoloured gums, nosebleeds. After training, participants were able to accurately tell which patients had burlosis. - After learning, participants were presented with pairs of new patients and had to pick which person of the pair is more likely to have "Burlosis". Participants based their diagnoses on the pattern of symptoms rather than the average occurrence of each symptom (as expected from the prototype view). People picked up on correlations of features. - Unbeknownst to participants, there were two correlated features. - Importantly, a single prototype cannot convey such correlation. Multiple data points are needed to point out the 2 correlated features, therefore, just having prototype will not be helpful. ex: Discolored gums and nosebleed = correlated = POSITIVE FOR BURLOSIS. - in the training cases, no definite symptom will singlehandedly give you the diagnosis of burlosis, but there is a pair of symptoms that will give you a diagnosis (discoloured gums and nosebleed). - every patient with burlosis have correlated symptoms patterns for discoloured gums or nosebleeds. - if a patient has discoloured gums and burlosis, he always has nosebleeds. - if a patient has burlosis with no discoloured gums, he doesn't have nosebleeds. - based on this, if you represent the category of burlosis by a single prototype, you won't be able to extract this correlational pattern between discoloured gums & nosebleeds, because in order to extract correlation, you need multiple examples in your head to represent a category. - if participants can learn which patient in each pair has burlosis, that means that the category of burlosis is not represented by a single prototype, instead, participants have access to multiple exemplars for the category burlosis so they can be sensitive of the correlational structure exhibited by the two symptoms of discoloured gums & nosebleeds. This proved that participants do have multiple exemplars in their head, which explains the exemplar-based approach and not the prototype approach - Means that people have idea about these correlation = supports exemplar- approach. - Examplar-based approach allows learning of such correlation.
What is Evidence against Prototypical representations of categories?
1. Imaginary prototype 2. Low typicality categories 3. New categories 4. Context dependency
What are 2 advantages of the exemplar approach to categorization?
1. That 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, we remember that there are some birds that don't fly. This 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. 2. 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.
What are the three reasons why the behaviouristic approach alone cannot explain why we acquire language?
1. We can understand and produce a sentence that we haven't heard before. According to operant conditioning, it requires the learner to experience the thing that they need to learn has to be reinforced through reward or punishment. But this type of learning can't occur if we've never heard that sentence before, so how can we produce and understand sentences we've never heard before? 2. Children often do not need a trigger to begin language acquisition. it is very natural for children to start learning language (not provided any operant conditioning). So how does this work? 3. There exists optimal periods for language acquisition (called the critical period). If language learning is just like any other operant conditioning, why is there a time that humans are sensitive and very good at learning language?
What is the exemplar approach to categorization?
A category is represented by storing all of its examples. To categorize a new item, retrieve examples most similar to the new item. Like the prototype approach, involves determining whether an object is similar to other objects. However, whereas the standard for the prototype approach is a single "average" member of the category, the standard for the exemplar approach involves many examples, each one called an exemplar.
What is the imagery debate?
A debate about whether imagery is based on spatial mechanisms, such as those involved in perception, or on mechanisms related to language, called propositional mechanisms.
What is a prototype?
A prototype is a "typical" member of the category that has characteristic features that describe the members of the category. What is a typical member of a particular category? Eleanor Rosch (1973) proposed that the "typical" prototype is based on an average of members of a category that are commonly experienced. 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
What is a spatial representation? (analog)
A representation in which different parts of an image can be described as corresponding to specific locations in space.
What is a lexicon?
All words a person understands, all the words they known
What is production in the exemplar-based approach of categorization?
An exemplar based approach of categorization. Example: When someone mentions Robin before Penguin. It's because Robins are encountered more frequently than penguins... thus, they are more frequently mentioned. - People report the high typicality quicker - Higher typicality is better primed because it's encountered more frequently
What is category-specific memory impairment?
An impairment in which they people lose the ability to identify one type of object but retained the ability to identify other types of objects. Specifically, these patients were able to identify nonanimals, like furniture and tools, as well as fruits and vegetables, but had impaired ability to identify living animals. Nonliving things will be called artifacts.
Explain the Chalmers and Reisberg (1985) experiment?
Called the "Stable image" experiment. 1. Participants viewed the ambiguous figure. 2. Figure was taken away. 3. Participants were asked to reinterpret the figure. - They failed to reinterpret the image... 4. Participants drew image and tried to reinterpret again - They successfully reinterpreted the image! - Means that perception is more easily modifiable if you are presented an image through perception but the mental imagery is little more difficult
What is a category?
Categories help us to understand and infer about an object even if you haven't encountered it before. A category includes all possible examples of a particular concept. Thus, the category "cats" includes tabbies, Siamese cats, Persian cats, wildcats, leopards, and so on. Looked at in this way, concepts provide the rules for creating categories.
What is a High-prototypicality member?
Category members that closely resemble the prototype
What is a Low-prototypicality member?
Category members that do not closely resemble the prototype.
What is the context dependency evidence?
Category membership is sometimes context- and experience-dependent. - e.g.) tea cup or finger bowl? - Category can be changed by experience = depending on the experience you have - Category depends on the context of the object or your experience
What did Chomsky say about language?
Chomsky and psych linguistics would argue that language is a genetically configured innate function of the brain, and not something we acquire through operant conditioning.
What is consolidation?
Cognitive process that transforms new memories from a fragile state to a more permanent state
Who was patient RM?
Damage to occipital and parietal lobes. R.M. was able to recognize objects and to draw accurate pictures of objects that were placed before him. However, he was unable to draw objects from memory, a task that requires imagery. He also had trouble answering questions that depend on imagery, such as verifying whether the sentence "A grapefruit is larger than an orange" is correct.
What is the description and experimental results of Naming?
Definition: People are more likely to list some objects than others when asked to name objects in a category. Results: High-prototypical items are named first when people list examples of a category (Mervis et al., 1976).
What is the description and experimental results of Typicality?
Definition: People react rapidly to members of a category that are "typical" of the category. Results: Faster reaction time to statements like "A _______ isa bird" for high-prototypical items (like robin) than for low-prototypical items (like ostrich) (Smith et al., 1974).
What is the description and experimental results of Priming?
Definition: Presentation of one stimulus affects responses to a stimulus that follows. Results: Faster same-different color judgments for high-prototypical items (Rosch, 1975b).
What is the description and experimental results of Family Resemblance?
Definition: Things in a category resemble each other in a number of ways. Results: Higher ratings for high-prototypical items when people rate how "good" a member of the category it is (Rosch, 1975a).
When do definitions work well and when do they 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. The problem is that not all of the members of everyday categories have the same features. So, although the dictionary definition of a chair as "a piece of furniture consisting of a seat, legs, back, and often arms, designed to accommodate one person" may sound reasonable, there are objects we call "chairs" that don't meet that definition. - Bean bag chairs, couches, stools etc.
What properties do people use to distinguish between living things and artifacts (nonliving things)?
Distinguishing living things depends on perceiving their sensory features. For example, distinguishing between a tiger and a leopard depends on perceiving stripes and spots. Artifacts, in contrast, are more likely to be distinguished by their function. For example, a screwdriver, chisel, and hammer are all tools but are used for different purposes (turning screws, scraping, and pounding nails). The observation that living things are distinguished by sensory properties and artifacts by functions led to the sensory-functional (S-F) hypothesis,
What is the cognitive hypothesis for the Reminiscence Bump?
Encoding is better during periods of rapid change that are followed by stability. Ex: Reminiscence bump is shifted for those who experienced a major life change (i.e., immigration) after young adulthood.
What is the difference between the superordinate (global) level, the basic level, and the subordinate (specific) level?
Example: Global/superordinate = Furniture Basic = Table Specific/subordinate = Kitchen Table Rosch proposed that the basic level is psychologically special because going above it (to global) results in a large loss of information (9 features at the basic vs. 3 at the global level) and going below it (to specific) results in little gain of information (9 features vs. 10.3). See diagram on page 254 & 255 or in notes Lecture 8. - Info (# of shared features) is lost from basic to superordinate. - Very little information is gained from basic to subordinate. - When you gain expertise, it increases the # of specific categories you know. Expertise = you have more specific categories that belong to the basic one, but not much of an increase in info ex: when you think of a chair, there are many examples of common shared features, but when you go up to the superordinate, it is more difficult to come up with something. There is more shared info in each basic category than in the superordinate.
What are 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."
What is mental imagery?
Experiencing a sensory impression in the absence of sensory input. The ability to recreate the sensory world in the absence of physical stimuli, also occurs in senses other than vision. People have the ability to imagine tastes, smells, and tactile experiences. Example: imagining seeing something, listening to a favorite music in mind's ear
What is the difference between the Fusiform face area (FFA) and the - Parahippocampal place area (PPA)?
Fusiform face area (FFA): activated when seeing faces Parahippocampal place area (PPA): activated when seeing places/buildings
Who was patient CK?
Had a closed-head injury. Could not name pictures of objects in front of them (visual agnosia). Could draw accurate pictures of objects from memory (using imagery). C.K. could recognize parts of objects but couldn't integrate them into a meaningful whole. But despite his inability to name pictures of objects, C.K. was able to draw objects from memory, a task that depends on imagery. Interestingly, when he was shown his own drawings after enough time had passed so he had forgotten the actual drawing experience, he was unable to identify the objects he had drawn.
What did Pylyshyn believe about imagery?
He disagreed with Kosslyn and said that just because we experience imagery as spatial, that doesn't mean that the underlying representation is spatial. After all, one thing that is clear from research in cognitive psychology is that we often aren't aware of what is going on in our mind. The spatial experience of mental images, argues Pylyshyn, is an epiphenomenon.
Who is Stephen Kosslyn?
He has proposed some influential theories of imagery based on parallels between imagery and perception. In one of his early experiments, Kosslyn (1973) asked subjects to memorize a picture of an object, such as a boat, and then to create an image of that object in their mind and to focus on one part of the boat, such as the anchor. They were then asked to look for another part of the boat, such as the motor, and to press the "true" button when they found this part or the "false" button when they couldn't find it. Kosslyn reasoned that if imagery, like perception, is spatial, then it should take longer for subjects to find parts that are located farther from the initial point of focus because they would be scanning across the image of the object. This is actually what happened, and Kosslyn took this as evidence for the spatial nature of imagery. As convincing as Kosslyn's results were, however, Zenon Pylyshyn (1973) proposed another explanation.
What were the results from the coglab mental rotation experiment?
It had the same results. Similarities between results: The smaller the angular difference was, the quicker the Rxn Time was. Differences: Rxn Time was constant across the angular difference because in order to decide it is different, one has to rotate the objects to see if they match. See difference between two graphs of results in lecture 8 notes page 13.
What is language?
It is a shared tool/system of communication across members who share the same language. It is expressed and understood through our sensory systems (often, but not limited to vocal/auditory systems). It requires for both members who are communicating to share that tool/language. There are also sign languages (primary visual), which aren't limited just to humans (ex: we communicate with our pets)
What does it mean to be a "Good definition?"
It means that the definition is necessary and sufficient to determine the concept
What is the semantic category approach?
It proposes that there are specific neural circuits in the brain for some specific categories. According to Bradford Mahon and Alfonso Caramazza (2011), there are a limited number of categories that are innately determined because of their importance for survival. This idea is based on research, which identified areas of the brain that respond to specific types of stimuli such as faces, places, and bodies. While the semantic category approach focuses on areas of the brain that are specialized to respond to specific types of stimuli, it also emphasizes that the brain's response to items from a particular category is distributed over a number of different cortical areas . Thus, identifying faces may be based on activity in the face area in the temporal lobe, but it also depends on activity in areas that respond to emotions, facial expressions, where the face is looking, and the face's attractiveness. Similarly, the response to a hammer activates visual areas that respond to the hammer's shape and color, but it also causes activity in areas that respond to how a hammer is used and to a hammer's typical motions.
What is crowding?
It refers to the fact that animals tend to share many properties (like eyes, legs, and the ability to move). In contrast, artifacts like cars and boats share fewer properties, other than that they are both vehicles. This has led some researches to propose that patients who appear to have category specific impairments, such as difficulty recognizing living things but not artifacts, don't really have a category specific impairment at all. They propose that these patients have difficulty recognizing living things because they have difficulty distinguishing between items that share similar features. According to this idea, because animals tend to be more similar then artifacts, these patients find animals harder to recognize
What is the sensory-functional hypothesis?
It states that our ability to differentiate living things and artifacts depends on a semantic memory system that distinguishes sensory attributes and a system that distinguishes function. Living things = distinguished by sensory properties Artifacts = distinguished by functions
What is the embodied approach?
It states that our knowledge of concepts is based on reactivation of sensory and motor processes that occur when we interact with the object. According to this idea, when a person uses a hammer, sensory areas are activated in response to the hammer's size, shape, and color, and, in addition, motor areas are activated that are involved in carrying out actions involved in using a hammer. When we see a hammer or read the word hammer later, these sensory and motor areas are reactivated, and it is this information that represents the hammer.
What was important about the experiment by Shepard and Metzler?
It was one of the first to apply quantitative methods to the study of imagery and to suggest that imagery and perception may share the same mechanisms. (References to "mechanisms" include both mental mechanisms, such as ways of manipulating perceptual and mental images in the mind, and brain mechanisms, such as which structures are involved in creating perceptual and mental images.)
Explain the experiment by James Tanaka and Marjorie Taylor (1991)?
J. D. Coley and coworkers (1997) asked Northwestern University undergraduates to name, as specifically as possible, 44 different plants on a walk around campus, 75 percent of the responses used labels like "tree," rather than more specific labels like "oak." But instead of asking college undergraduates to name plants, what if Coley had taken a group of horticulturalists around campus? Do you think they would have said "tree" or "oak"? An experiment by James Tanaka and Marjorie Taylor (1991) asked a similar question for birds. They asked bird experts and nonexperts to name pictures of objects. There were objects from many different categories (tools, clothing, flowers, etc.), but Tanaka and Taylor were interested in how the subjects responded to the four bird pictures. The results (Figure 9.11) show that the experts responded by specifying the birds' species (robin, sparrow, jay, or cardinal), but the nonexperts responded by saying "bird." Apparently the experts had learned to pay attention to features of birds that nonexperts were unaware of. Thus, in order to fully understand how people categorize objects, we need to consider not only the properties of the objects but also the learning and experience of the people perceiving those objects (also see Johnson & Mervis, 1997). From the result of Tanaka's bird experiment, we can guess that a horticulturist walking around campus would be likely to label plants more specifically than people who had little specific knowledge about plants.
What is the behaviourist view of how we acquire language?
Just like any other learned behaviors, language is learned through operant conditioning. Skinner claimed that language is just like any other learned behaviour, we can learn language simply through operant conditioning.
What is conceptual knowledge?
Knowledge that enables us to recognize objects and events and to make inferences about their properties. This knowledge exists in the form of concepts.
What evidence is there for the analogous code for mental imagery by Kosslyn?
Kosslyn and colleagues (1978) had participants memorize a fictional map by redrawing it. After learning the map, they imagined moving a dot from a location A to location B. Results: - They measure how long it took them to move the dot in their imagination as a function of actual distance on the map. - The distance the dot moved in the map was directly related to the time it took mentally move the dot. - Robust, positive correlation = longer distance = longer time to imagine the dot moving
What is implicit memory and what are the 3 parts of it?
LTM that can't be consciously accessed. Procedural memory: motor memory, like riding a bike. You can't verbally describe how you do it, you just can. Priming: : More efficient processing of information after exposures. Ex: contextual cueing, which when displayed over and over, makes you faster. Conditioning: Automatic response to a stimulus
What is the prototype approach to categorization?
Membership in a category is determined by comparing the object to a prototype that represents the category. A category is represented by the prototype
What is the propositional standpoint on the nature of the format of mental images?
Mental images are represented by sentence-like descriptions of the properties of the "image" people believe they are experiencing. - View by Pylyshn
What is Charles Bonnet Syndrome?
Mentally healthy individuals with significant vision loss experiences recurring and often complex visual hallucination filling in the blind percept. Example: Patient named Bee has glaucoma and as her vision worsens, her episodes of Charles Bonnet Syndrome becomes more elaborate
Is the semantic category approach suggesting that there is a place in the brain that is specialized for "hammers?"
No, it is saying that evolution has resulted in neural circuits that enable us to efficiently interact with some objects by grasping them and carrying out movements such as swinging that would be important for survival.
What evidence is there of mental imagery in the brain?
O'Craven and Kaniwisher's (2000) experiment: - Participants saw or imagined seeing faces or places. - The corresponding regions of brain for face (FFA) and place (PPA) perception was activated during "imagine" conditions! · When people imagine seeing face = increase FFA activity · Imagine house = increase in PPA activity · Corresponding regions of the brain are activated just imaging objects, though not as strongly = SUPPORTS THE ANALOG VIEW (imagining is much like seeing the object itself)
What is Sentence Verification in the prototype approach?
People are faster at verifying a sentence like "A robin is a bird" than verifying a sentence like "A penguin is a bird". Key: a sentence using high prototypical = is more verified than low prototypical
What is production in the prototype approach?
People go from highly-prototypical members to less- prototypical members in recalling category exemplars. When people are asked to say as many categories as possible to give as many examples of birds = people go from highly prototypical then to less
What is priming?
Priming occurs when presentation of one stimulus facilitates the response to another stimulus that usually follows closely in time
How can we imagine a square in propositional terms versus analogous terms?
Propositional code: - 4 straight lines - 4 right angles - Each line connected at the right angles Analogous code: - picture the square in your head
What is the Typicality effect?
Prototypical objects are processed more preferentially. 3 types of effects: 1. Production 2. Sentence verification 3. Induction
What is a propositional representation?
Pylyshyn proposed that the mechanism underlying imagery is not spatial but propositional. A propositional representation is one in which relationships can be represented by abstract symbols, such as an equation, or a statement such as "The cat is under the table." In contrast, a spatial representation would involve a spatial layout showing the cat and the table that could be represented in a picture.
What was the difference between Pylyshyn and Kosslyn's views on imagery?
Pylyshyn's Propositional view: mental images are represented by sentence-like descriptions of the properties of the "image" people believe they are experiencing. Kosslyn's Analogous view: : mental images are represented just like its sensory representations. For example, visual imagery are represented similarly to the actual visual experience of the image
What is sentence verification in the exemplar-based approach of categorization?
RT = reaction time RT [Robin is bird] << RT [Penguin is bird] Robins are encountered more frequently than penguins... thus, they are more frequently mentioned. - Reaction time in verifying a sentence that included a high typicality is quicker than verifying a sentence with a low typicality. - WHY? Because we encounter high typicality more than low typicality = and priming helps you more.
What are examples of some categories that are represented at specific regions of the brain?
Representations in the brain are based on activity in areas specialized to process information about specific stimuli such as faces, places, and bodies, and also on activity distributed throughout many interconnected struc- tures in the brain. Categories are sometimes compartmentalized inside brain, for example: 1. Certain object categories activate specific regions of brain. - e.g.) face-FFA, places-PPA, body parts-EBA 2. Damage to certain regions of brain leads to loss of knowledge of specific categories. - e.g.) FFA-prosopagnosia •Patients with brain lesions
What are depictive representations?
Representations that are like realistic pictures of an object, so that parts of the representation correspond to parts of the object.
What is mental chronometry?
Roger Shepard and Jacqueline Metzler (1971) inferred cognitive processes by usingmental chronometry, determining the amount of time needed to carry out various cognitive tasks. In Shepard and Metzler's mental rotation experiment, subjects saw pictures of objects at different angles. Their task was to indicate, as rapidly as possible, whether the two pictures were of the same object or of different objects. This experiment showed that the time it took to decide that two views were of the same object was directly related to how different the angles were between the two views. This result was interpreted as showing that subjects were mentally rotating one of the views to see whether it matched the other one.
Explain the experiment by Rosch (1975) "Rate the goodness as an example of a category"
Rosch (1975) quantified this idea by presenting subjects with a category title, such as "bird" or "furniture," and a list of about 50 members of the category. The subjects' task was to rate the extent to which each member represented the category title on a 7-point scale, with a rating of 1 meaning that the member is a very good example of what the category is, and a rating of 7 meaning that the member fits poorly within the category or is not a member at all. Most people consider a sparrow to be a good example of a bird (1.18 rating). 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. Similarly, chair and sofa (rating = 1.04) are considered very good examples of furniture, but mirror (4.39) and telephone (6.68) are poor examples. The idea that a sparrow is a better example of "bird" than a penguin or a bat is not very surprising. But Rosch went beyond this obvious result by doing a series of experiments that demonstrated differences between good and bad examples of a category. Lower number = more prototypicality = good example of category Higher number = less prototypicality it has = not so good example of that category = bats are not birds
Explain Rosch's (1975) "category priming experiment"
Rosch (1975b) demonstrated that prototypical members of a category are more affected by a priming stimulus than are nonprototypical members. The procedure for Rosch's experiment is shown in Figure 9.6. Subjects first heard the prime, which was the name of a color, such as "green." Two seconds later they saw a pair of colors side by side and indicated, by pressing a key as quickly as possible, whether the two colors were the same or different. The side-by-side colors that subjects saw after hearing the prime were paired in three different ways: (1) colors were the same and were good examples of the category (primary reds, blues, greens, etc); (2) colors were the same but were poor examples of the category (less rich versions of the good colors, such as light blue, light green, etc.; (3) colors were different, with the two colors coming from different categories (for example, pairing red with blue). The most important result occurred for the two "same" groups. In this condition, priming resulted in faster "same" judgments for the prototypical (good) colors (reaction time, RT = 610 ms) than for the nonprototypical (poor) colors (RT = 780 ms). Thus, when subjects heard the word green, they judged two patches of primary green as being the same more rapidly than two patches of light green.
What is psycholinguistics?
Scientific study of psychological processes by which humans acquire and process language
What is a phoneme?
Shortest segments of speech that if changed, changes the meaning of the word. There are 2 types (consonant and vowel) and 44 total phonemes in English. Phonemes are described in the interaction phonetic alphabet. Different languages have different #s of phonemes
What is the low typicality categories piece of evidence?
Some categories are composed of many dissimilar members. - e.g.) what is an average "furniture?" - We know what it is and composed by many dissimilar members - All examples might look different from one another = same category but looks different
Which approach is right?
Some researchers have concluded that people may use both approaches. It has been proposed that 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. Thus, early in learning, we would be poor at taking into account "exceptions" such as ostriches or penguins, but later, exemplars for these cases would be added to the category . Other research indicates that the exemplar approach may work better for small categories, such as "U.S. presidents" or "mountains taller than 15,000 feet," and the prototype approach may work better for larger categories, such as "birds" or "automobiles." We can describe this blending of prototypes and exemplars in commonsense terms with the following example: We know generally what cats are (the prototype), but we know our own specific cat the best (an exemplar).
What is the problem with family resemblance?
Some things can look similar to each other, but be in completely different groups
What is an epiphenomenon?
Something that accompanies the real mechanism but is not actually part of the mechanism. An example of an epiphenomenon is lights flashing as a mainframe computer carries out its calculations. The lights may indicate that something is going on inside the computer, but they don't necessarily tell us what is actually happening. In fact, if all of the lightbulbs blew out, the computer would continue operating just as before. Mental images, according to Pylyshyn, are similar—they indicate that something is happening in the mind, but don't tell us how it is happening.
What is synesthesia?
Stimulation of one sensory system (e.g., vision) leads to automatic and involuntary imaginary experiences in the same or another modality. e.g.) colored letters (color-grapheme synesthesia), hearing colors, smelling sounds. - Sometimes people claim when they see a specific color when the colors are not visible or smell a certain thing when they hear something. - All subjective experiences, so we need an objective way to test it.
What do patients RM and CK tell us about imagery and perception?
That imagery and perception recruit overlapping but not identical brain regions! - Patient RM = cannot draw the fish - Patient CK = could not tell what the object presented to him (visual agnosia), but could draw the actual images of presented objects. - Results show that there is clear difference between imagery and perception = may recruit overlapping parts of the brain but they are not necessarily identical. There is double dissociation of perception and memory
What is Kosslyn's view on imagery?
That the mechanism responsible for imagery involves a spatial representation—a representation in which different parts of an image can be described as corresponding to specific locations in space. Spatial representation is also called an analog in the notes.
How does the exemplar approach explain the typicality effect?
The exemplar approach explains the typicality effect (in which reaction times on the sentence verification task are faster for better examples of a category than for poorer examples) by 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.
What is the multiple-factor approach?
The idea of distributed representation is a central feature of the multiple-factor approach, but this approach focuses not on brain areas or networks that are specialized for specific concepts but on searching for more factors that determine how concepts are divided up within a category.
What is essentialism?
The idea that certain features are more important than others, and these features can ultimately determine identity. Just having all the features all checked out does not guarantee its membership into a group = essentialism
What is induction in the prototype approach?
The inference "A robin has X, therefore a penguin should also have X", is accepted more readily than "A penguin has X, therefore a robin should also have X". X = a feature like a beak. Key: induction made based on high typicality is easier for people to accept
How are mirror neurons and concepts related?
The link between perception (a neuron fires when watching the experimenter pick up the food) and motor responses (the same neuron fires when the monkey picks up the food) is central to the embodied approach's proposal that thinking about concepts causes activation of perceptual and motor areas associated with these concepts.
How do the mechanisms of perception and imagery overlap only partially?
The mechanism for perception is located at both lower and higher visual centers and the mechanism for imagery is located mainly in higher visual centers. According to this idea, visual perception necessarily involves bottom-up processing, which starts when light enters the eye and an image is focused on the retina, then continues as signals are sent along the visual pathways to the visual cortex and then to higher visual centers. The visual cortex is crucial for perception because it is here that objects begin being analyzed into components like edges and orientations. This information is then sent to higher visual areas, where perception is "assembled," and top-down processing, which involves a person's prior knowledge, may also be involved. In contrast, imagery originatesas a top-down process, in higher brain areas that are responsible for memory. Based on this explanation, we can hypothesize that C.K.'s difficulty in perceiving is caused by damage early in the processing stream, but that he can still create images because higher-level areas of his brain are intact. Similarly, we can hypothesize that R.M.'s difficulty in creating mental images is caused by damage to higher-level areas, where mental images originate, but that he can perceive objects because areas earlier in the processing stream are still functioning.
What is family resemblance?
The notion that people have knowledge of the typical features of a category of things. - Thus, various items are more or less probable to be part of a category, depending on how similar they are to the members of this family of items. Things that belong to the same category = more similar to each other = form a family - There is no notion here of necessary and sufficient properties...just probable ones.
Who was Ludwig Wittgenstein?
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953) noted this problem with definitions and offered a solution: Consider for example the proceedings we call "games." I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. For if you look at them you will not see something in common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than "family resemblances." Wittgenstein proposed the idea of family resemblance to deal with the problem that definitions often do not include all members of a category. 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.
What is categorization?
The process by which things are placed in categories. According to the 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.
What is long-term memory?
The system that is responsible for storing information for long periods of time. One way to describe LTM is as an "archive" of information about past events in our lives and knowledge we have learned. What is particularly amazing about this storage is that it stretches from just a few moments ago to as far back as we can remember.
What was Sheppard and colleagues 1971 mental rotation experiment with letters?
Their question: Do the movements of mental images have characteristic similar to movements of real objects? Participants were shown R's and asked to judge whether the letters were normal or mirror reversed. It was assumed that the letters would be mentally rotated to "upright" positions in order to make this judgement. They found that the greater the angle the letter had to be rotated to get back to the upright position, the longer it took for participants to judge whether they were mirror reversed or not. The more rotated = longer it took to make judgements. - Mentally rotating an object follows a similar constriction as physically rotating it
What was Kosslyn's "zoom time" experiment (1978)?
They asked participants to: 1. Imagine a mouse next to an elephant. -First condition. 2. Imagine a mouse next to a paper clip. - Second condition. They asked the participants questions about the imagined mouse. - e.g.) Does the mouse have whiskers? Measure how long it will take to answer questions related to imagined condition. They found that the elephant condition's reaction time was greater than the paper clip condition's reaction time. Explanation: Elephant Cond: Mouse is proportionally smaller than elephant = if asked if the mouse has whiskers = you have to zoom in so it will take longer to answer. Paper clip Cond: Mouse will occupy larger mental space so when asked about whiskers = faster response.
What were the results from the study by Paul Hoffman and Matthew Lambon Ralph (2013)?
They indicated that animals were more highly associated with motion and color compared to artifacts, and artifacts were more highly associated with performed actions (actions associated with using or interacting with an object). This result conforms to the S-F hypothesis, but Hoffman and Lambon Ralph looked at the groupings more closely, and they found some interesting results. Mechanical devices such as machines, vehicles, and musical instruments overlapped with both artifacts (involving performed actions) and animals (involving sound and motion). For example, musical instruments are associated with specific actions (how you play them), which goes with artifacts, and are also associated with sensory properties (their visual form and the sounds they create), which goes with animals. Thus, mechanical devices have a widely distributed semantic representation that includes regions important for the representation of both living things and artifacts. Because of the wide distribution of the representation for mechanical devices, sometimes patients are able to identify mechanical devices even if they perform poorly for other types of artifacts. For example, Hoffman and Lambon Ralph note that there are patients who have poor comprehension of smaller objects but better knowledge of larger artifacts, such as vehicles.
Explain the study by Jeremy Wilmer and coworkers (2010)?
They tested the idea that areas of the brain are innately specialized for specific categories of concepts by measuring face recognition ability in monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins. Their finding that the correlation of scores between identical twins was more than twice as high as the correlation for fraternal twins (0.70 vs. 0.29) led them to conclude that there is a genetic basis for the mechanisms that support face recognition
What was the experiment by Ishai and Sagi (1995)?
They wanted participants to detect a target between: 1. Masks 2. Mothing 3. Imagined masks Normally, it is easier to detect the target when presented with masks with enough distance. Here, the participants job was to find the target that is presented in the screen. Bottom screen: identify which way the target is orienting, in this case it was vertical, which was the no mask condition. Top screen: target is presented with 2 masks, one on top and bottom, which was the mask condition. 3rd condition: They were to imagine seeing the mask. - experimenters wanted to see if we can see the benefit of the mask even if it is imagined Results: Imagined masks helped the target detection just like the physical masks. - Ishai and Sagi presented participants with a target. - The target is a grating that is very faint and presented at the centre of the screen. - their job was to detect the target that's presented at the centre of the screen in 3 different conditions. - in mask condition: target was presented with 2 masks on either side of the target (one on top and one on bottom). - nothing condition: target was presented in isolation. - imagined masks: had to detect the target (with no masks) while imagining the presence of masks, just like the ones in the mask condition. - from past studies they know that its easier to detect the target when masks were presented with enough distance from the target they wanted to see if imagining masks was just as effective as the mask condition - they found that imagining masks is much better than the no mask condition and is almost as good as the physical masks
What is the typicality effect?
This ability to judge highly prototypical objects more rapidly is called the typicality effect.
What is hierarchical organization?
This kind of organization, in which larger, more general categories are divided into smaller, more specific categories, creating a number of levels of categories, is called a hierarchical organization.
What are mirror neurons?
Vittorio Gallese and coworkers (1996) were investigating how neurons in the monkey's premotor cortex fired as the monkey performed actions such as picking up a toy or a piece of food. As they were recording from neurons while the monkey carried out specific actions, they observed something they didn't expect: Some neurons in the monkey's premotor cortex fired both when the monkey grasped food on a tray and when the monkey observed the experimenter grasping food on a tray. These neurons are called mirror neurons because the neuron's response to watching the experimenter grasp an object is similar to the response that occurs when the monkey is performing the action itself. Most mirror neurons are specialized to respond to only one type of action, such as grasping or placing an object somewhere. Although you might think that the monkey may have been responding to the anticipation of receiving food, the type of object made little difference. The neurons responded just as well when the monkey observed the experimenter pick up an object that was not food.
What is the imaginary prototype piece of evidence?
We have never seen a prototype! What would an average "bird" really look like? Who knows what an average bird look like
What is the new category evidence?
We seem to be capable of understanding newly formed categories that you have never thought of beforehand. - e.g.) All things to take out of house in case of fire - Categories that we never though about like what objects to take out when there is fire - Ability to form new categories = difficult one to obtain
What is a reminiscence bump?
We tend to have better memory for recent events and for events occurred in adolescence and early adulthood (between 10-30 years of age)
What is Rorsch's explanation of this?
When subjects hear the word green, they imagine a "good" (highly prototypical) green. The principle behind priming is that the prime will facilitate the subjects' 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 subjects create images of prototypes in response to color names.
What are critiques of the sensory-functional hypothesis?
While the S-F hypothesis explained the behavior of Warrington and Shallice's patients, plus dozens of others studied by other researchers, cases were reportedthat couldn't be explained by this hypothesis. For example, the S-F hypothesis predicts that a patient who can't identify living things should have impaired sensory abilities. However, Caramazza and Shelton (1998) reported a patient who couldn't identify living things and had impaired sensory abilities (as the S-F hypothesiswould predict), but who also had impaired functional ability (which the S-F hypothesis wouldn't predict.) The S-F hypothesis also predicts that a person who can't identify artifacts should have impaired functional knowledge. However, Matthew Lambon Ralph and coworkers (1998) reported a patient who couldn't recognize artifacts but who had an impaired sensory ability. Because of cases such as these, most researchers concluded that the S-F hypothesis was too simplified, and they began looking for other attributes that distinguished between living things and artifacts.
Why doesn't stability enhance memory?
With stability, life becomes more routine and less memorable. When memories are very similar to each other, they become like a blur.
How can knowledge affect categorization?
hus, the level that is "special"—meaning that people tend to focus on it—is not the same for everyone. Generally, people with more expertise and familiarity with a particular category tend to focus on more specific information that Rosch associated with the specific level. This result isn't surprising, because our ability to categorize is learned from experience; it depends on which objects we typically encounter and what characteristics of objects we pay attention to.
