Psych 270 - Chapter 7: Semantic Memory

what is parsimonious?

economy of explanation in conformity with Occam's Razor

What did Neely conclude

priming is happening unconsciously whether you know it or now

where do characteristic features appear on feature ists?

the bottom of each feature list

what did the empirical tests of the models use?

the sentence verification task

where do defining features appear on feature lists?

the top (most important characteristic of membership)

what is a pathway?

-Labeled directional associations between concepts -Not just connections

what are pathways and propositions?

-Pathways connect two nodes together to form propositions. -"ISA" pathways express category membership (e.g., A robin is a bird) -Property pathways express properties that concepts possess (e.g., x has the property of y-- a robin has the property of wings)

What was the experiment done by Loftus and Palmer in 1974?

-they asked individuals questions about a car accident they saw

what is anomia?

-A deficit in word finding -Semantics are there but actual word is not -PDP models can be "lesioned" to mimic the effects of anomia

what is a network?

-An interrelated set of concepts / body of knowledge -Comprised of nodes and the association between these nodes

what is semantic relatedness?

-Closely related concepts -The distance between two nodes in a network is determined by semantic relatedness -Concepts close in meaning / highly related (e.g., doctor, nurse) are stored close together in memory -Unrelated concepts (doctor, truck) are stored far away

what were the results for Kounios and Holcomb's experiment

-Concrete words: left = right (activating linguistic and spatial representation) -Abstract words: left > right (only linguistic)

what are the feature lists from Smith's Feature Comparison Model

-Contain semantic features-- simple, one element characteristics-- of each concept stored in memory Feature lists have a much simpler structure than network models. That is, they are more parsimonious

What did Meyer and Schvaneveldt think would not happen in their experiment?

-Didn't think that there would be people accessing meaning -Have to activate the meaning for some words (doctor and nurse) -Associate words are faster

what are defining features?

-Features absolutely essential to the concept (members in the list) -Robins must be physical objects, have red breasts and feathers...

what are characteristic features?

-Features that are common but not essential to the meaning of a concept -Example: A robin perches in trees

What was the experiment Swinney did for ambiguity resolution?

-Had people look at a computer and they would see letter string and they had to say if it was a word or nonword -While they were doing this task they were wearing headsets and auditorily a voice was reading sentences to them --The man was not surprised when he found spiders and other bugs (mean two things) in his room --Simultaneously present the word ant

what is the ambiguity resolution?

-Infer meaning from context (which you previously read) OR -Activate all possible meanings

What are nature categories by Rosch (1973)

-Natural categories occur in the real world of our experience and have a complex internal structure -A collie is a "better" dog than is a dachshund -Natural categories have fuzzy boundaries-- category membership is a matter of degree

sample of semantic network

-Nodes are circles -Associations/pathways b/w them -Isa pathways e.g. bird is a animal -P pathways are property pathways -E.g. and animals has the property of breathing -If you activate bird, it will cause spreading activation to animal, feathers, fly, canary, or robin -Those that are closest will get activated first -Spread like a ripple in a pond

what is semantic memory?

-Our permanent memory store of general world knowledge -Knowledge we have in our mind -The facts you have learned -How is knowledge (meaning) represented in memory? And how do we retrieve that knowledge?

what is facilitation?

-Prime decreases processing time needed for the target -E.g. doctor will make you respond faster to nurse than something that doesn't relate to it

What is inhibition?

-Prime increases processing time needed for the target -E.g. give you the word truck for you to activate the nurse target

What was the experiment done by Neely for priming?

-Priming is automatic (happening really fast) -By varying the SOAs, Neely concluded that priming is automatic -Manipulation of SOA for 300ms and 2100ms (nurse-doctor, xxx-doctor, bread-doctor) -Say if the second word is a word or not (lexical decision task) -With just 300ms difference between nurse and doctor you get priming and inhibition in a short time -Patterns of results are the same (not the same results)

what are perceptual categories

-Research on the Dani Tribe in New Guinea -In their language they have two words for colour (light things and dark things) -She was showing them a bunch of colours and later she would ask them to remember the colours -They were better at remembering focal colours -Pattern of data is identical to what you would get with anyone else -Demonstrates that we form perceptual categories independent of language

What was the example done by Simpson (1981) for context

-Role of context and priming in ambiguity -Ambiguity and Priming: --"We had trouble keeping track of the count." --Count can mean more than one thing (title, actually counting something, etc.)

Concept Formation: Traditional Research

-Show subjects a series of arbitrary patterns and have them judge whether each is an example of the concept/category being tested -Keep doing it until you got it right

What was the experiment done by Marcel for priming?

-Showed the word child for 50ms on a computer, then **** for 10ms (blocks previous experience- backward masking), then the word infant and they are asked if it is a word or not -People are faster when the words are related -Spreading activation happens behind the scenes -Priming is an implicit process -Evidence for subliminal perception? (be influenced by things you're not aware of) --Yes you can --Can be done through context effects

What is priming?

-Stimulus presented first in the hopes of influencing some later process -Spreading activation is how we get knowledge from this memory system -Makes it more likely for something to enter conscious -E.g. Present doctor and then later say nurse you are primed because you learned doctor earlie

What was the experiment done by Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971) with the lexical decision task?

-Subjects judge whether a two strings of letters is a word --Only said yes if both strings were words --If one was a word and the other was not their response should be no --Task is to simply say if they were words not access the meaning --Go as fast as they can -The semantic relatedness of the prime-target pairs was varied --Manipulation: sometimes you'll see things that are related (doctor and nurse) or seen things that are not related (doctor and truck) -Reaction time was the primary index of performance --How long does it take to say both strings of letters are words

3. Typically Effects

-The Feature List Model was built to explain them -remained a problem and couldn't be fixed -More typical members of a category are judged faster than are less typical ones -"A robin is a bird" is verified faster than is "A chicken is a bird." -Adding semantic relatedness to the network model allows it to explain typicality effects

What is spreading activation?

-The mental activity of accessing and retrieving information from the network -Mechanism for retrieving information from these networks -Analogy of the rock being thrown into the pond and it just ripples after the rock hits the water -Takes passive concepts (those not currently in working memory) and activates them (puts them in working memory)

what is a target

-The stimulus that follows the prime -E.g. nurse

What did Swinney's experiment show?

-This study showed that we tend to (initially) activate all the meanings associated with a word -This effect disappears when the target word (e.g., ant, spy, or sew) is presented after the prime (e.g., bug)

how do you go through feature comparison?

-To answer, first access each feature list from memory -Second, compare each list for common features (feature overlap) -Stage 1 comparison is fast and involves a global comparison of how much the features in each list overlap -Stage 2 comparison is slow (occurring only when the lists have an intermediate amount of overlap) Stage 2 involves only the defining features of each list.

what is the intersection search?

-True or False: A robin is a bird? -how we gather knowledge from these networks -Activation lights the robin node, and then spreads to its neighbors -Activation also lights the bird node, and then spreads to its neighbors -The two spreads of activation eventually collide-- an intersection-- which lets you answer "True, a robin is a bird."

what are some big problems fo the feature list model for property statements?

-What about property statements (what is in a brown list) -What is in a big list (elephant, compared to the cosmos) and what is in a small list (dog compared to a cell) -Getting to the heart of what Smith was proposing -Could be fixed

what were the results for Swinney's study?

-When ANT and SPY were presented at the same time as the participants heard the word bug, participants were faster to say that both ANT and SPY were real words compared to the unrelated trial SEW (facilitation was occurring - you activate all possible meanings) -However, when the words were presented 250ms after the word bug, the context facilitated ANT and not SPY --Ant would we facilitated --Spy would not be facilitated -Initially you activate all meaning of the words and then 250ms later only one word is there

what were the limitations of traditional research

-Yes or no answers (categories are not binary) -Complexity to categories (no black and white)

what are propositions?

-a bit of knowledge -relationship between 2 nodes -Express a relationship between two concepts -Examples: --A robin has wings --An apple is a fruit

what did Meyer and Schvaneveldt conclude?

-activation of semantics is obligatory -Automatically activate semantics associated with the word

what is connectionism?

-also known as PDP models -structurally similar to the brain's network of neurons -individual units in PDP models are also similar to those in the brain --Functionally -positive and negative weights mimic excitatory and inhibitory neural synapses

why is spreading activation helpful?

-because it can help provide a map for semantic memory -Takes time -The stuff that is closest to the prime gets primed to the greatest extent

what did Paivio do for imagery and semantic relatedness

-concrete words have a dual-coding advantage, verbal and visual knowledge -Compared them to words that are non concrete words -Concrete words can be represented in two different ways

what did Kounios and Holcomb do for imagery and semantic relatedness?

-examined the mean amplitude of the ERP response -Where activation occurs when given concrete words compared to nonconcrete words

Who is Quillian

-he worked with computers - he created word semantics -he wanted a computer to understand the meaning of human language

what were the questions asked in Loftus and Palmers experiment?

-how fast were the cars going when they _______ each other? (blank would represent a different very given to different groups) -was there broken glass (no broken glass in reality)

2. priming within trials

-how much time there is between prime and target -Manipulating SOA -More precise measurements

what is the word frequency?

-how often a word appears in printed material) modulates the number of meanings activated

1. priming across trials

-lag -sentence variation -measures how much time there is between prime and target -looking at priming across different trials

what is lag?

-number of intervening trials between prime and target -can be manipulated -Not always false -Not related filler trial to make more time between a prime and a target -1,2,3,... -0 means there is none

what is the example of category specific deficit?

-patient JBR -Had problems naming living things, but no problems naming non-living things --Living things characteristics are sensory aspects (parrot- colours, lion-mane) --Non-living things (based on functionality) -Disruption in sensory VS functional knowledge? -When they lesioned the model they got the same results as JBR did

2. Property statements

-property of things -what features would be included in this list?

What is feature comparison?

-retrieve info from the list -the major process of information retrieval in the feature list model -e.g. true or false: A robin is a bird?

What is Smith's Feature Comparison Model

-semantic memory is a collection of lists

What is SOA

-stimulus onset asynchrony -The onset of the prime and target are staggered (target appears at a later point compared to prime) -The time between the onset of the prime and the onset of the target

what happens after passive concepts are activated?

-the activation then spreads to related nodes -e.g., activation to the doctor node would also spread to the nurse node)

What are prototypes

-the central or core instance of a category -If you have a category of dog you have a prototypical dog Those instances get averaged up and you create this average of the concept (This average concept may not actually exist) -the prototypical bird may not even exist in the real world

what did Collin and Quillian say about cognitive economy

-the incorrect notion from the original network model that redundant information is NOT stored in semantic memory

what were the results of Loftus and Palmers experiment?

-the words influenced how fast people were going and whether they though there was broken glass -false memory of something that never happened because of a single word

what did Collins and Quillian do?

-they created the Network Model of Semantic Memory

What are polysemous words?

-words with more than one meaning

can Collin and Quillian's view of cognitive economy be changed?

-yes because it is a result of technical problems they have from the very small computer so all they have to do is get a bigger picture

1. cognitive economy

-you don't have redundancy in your models (something written more than once) -redundant information IS stored in memory (e.g. flies appears under the bird node, but also under the robin node) -frequency of properties VS hierarchical levels

What are some key issues with empirical tests of the models

1. cognitive economy 2. property statements 3. typicality effects

What are the two methods for priming?

1. priming across trials 2. priming within trials

what is a node?

A point or location in the network representing a single concept

why are context effects priming effects?

Because we were talking about boo berry and count chocula previously it will influence the meaning of the word count when it appears

what is Lexical memory

The mental lexicon where word knowledge is stored

what is the general criticism for the property statement

Why would the robin list contain every important concept about robins except that a robin is a bird?

What is category specific deficit?

a disruption where a person loses access to one semantic category of words but not others

how do we assign meaning based upon the sound of a word when that word has multiple meanings?

ambiguity resolution