Chapter 8: The Structure of Semantic Memory (Terms)

ACT-R

(Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational), an approach that uses a series of network models in an attempt to account for a wide variety of tasks including memory, learning, spatial cognition, language, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making.

Abstraction

A memory process that stores the meaning of a message, rather than the exact words.

Event-Related Potential (ERP) Technique

A procedure for recording the very brief, small fluctuations in the brain's electrical activity in response to a stimulus such as an auditory tone.

Neural Networks

A theory describing cognitive processing in terms of networks that link together neuron-like units They perform operations simultaneously and in parallel.

Subordinate-level Categories

In the prototype approach, the lower-level or more specific categories.

Prototype

The item that is the best most typical example of a category, the ideal representative of a category.

Life Script

A list of events that a person believes would be most important throughout his or her lifetime.

Explicit Memory Task

A memory task in which participants are instructed to remember some information. Later, a recall or recognition test requires them to intentionally retrieve that previously learned information.

Semantic Memory

A person's organized knowledge about the world, including knowledge about words and other factual information.

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

A research tool based on the principle that people can mentally pair two related words together much more easily than they can pair two unrelated words. It is useful in assessing stereotypes such as gender.

Category

A set of objects that belong together and are considered by the cognitive system to be at least partly equivalent. Provide useful information about their members.

Script

A simple, well-structures sequence of events in a specified order. Usually associated with a highly familiar activity.

Validity

A test's ability to predict a persons' performance in another situation.

Propositional Network

According to Anderson's ACT-R model, the pattern of interconnected propositions representing a sentence.

Prototypicality

According to the prototype theory, the degree to which a member of a category is representative of this category.

Implicit Memory Task

An indirect measure of memory. Participants see the material. Later during the test phase, they are instructed to complete a cognitive task that does not directly ask for their recall. Previous experience with the material facilitates performance on the later task.

Schema

Generalized, well-integrated knowledge about a situation, and event, or a person. Allows people to predict what will happen in a new situation which are generally correct.

Connection Weights

In PDP processing, a characteristic of neural networks that determines how much activation one unit can pass on to another unit.

Default Assignment

In PDP processing, a method used to fill in missing information about a particular person or object based on information form other similar people or objects.

Spontaneous Generalization

In PDP processing, when information is missing, people use individual cases to draw inferences about general information.

Graded Structure

In PDP, a description of the variation between the category's most representative or prototypical members, less prototypical members, and nonprototypical members.

Graceful Degradation

In PDP, the brain's ability to provide partial memory. It explains why the brain continues to work somewhat accurately, even when portions have been destroyed.

Exemplar

In concept representation, the examples of a concept stored in memory. A new stimulus is classified by comparing it with these.

Exemplar Approach

In concept representation, the proposal that people first learn information about some specific examples of a concept; then they classify each new stimulus by deciding how closely it resembles all of those specific examples.

Inference

In connection with schemas, refers to the logical interpretations or conclusions that o beyond the original material.

Proposition

In deductive reasoning, are the statements that are made up of antecedents and consequents.

Constructive Model of Memory

In longer-term memory, the proposal that people integrate information from individual sentences in order to construct larger ideas.

False Alarm

In memory research, when people "remember" an item that was not originally presented.

Spreading Activation

In network models of semantic memory, the process by which nodes excite nearby or related nodes.

Nodes

In network models, the representation of each concept, or one unit located within the network.

Declarative Knowledge

In semantic memory, knowledge about facts and things.

Prototype Approach

In semantic memory, the proposal that people decide whether a particular item belongs to a category, based on comparison between this item and a prototype, then it will be included within this category.

Basic-level Categories

In the prototype approach to semantic memory, categories that are moderately specific; "chair", "dog" are examples of this.

Family Resemblance

In the prototype approach to semantic memory, the observation that--for some concepts--no single attribute is shared by all examples of the concept. However, each example has at least one attribute in common with some other example of the concept.

Superordinate-level Categories

In the prototype approach, higher-level or more general categories.

Typicality Effect

In the prototype approach, the observation that people judge typical items (prototypes) faster than items that are not typical (nonprototypes)

Episodic Memory

Memories from events that happened to them personally.

Network Models

Proposals that semantic memory consists of a netlike organization of concepts in memory, with numerous interconnections.

Concept

The mental representation of a category.

Semantic Priming Effect

The observation that people respond faster to an item if it was preceded by an item with similar meaning.

Pragmatic View of Memory

The proposal that people pay attention to the aspect of a message that is most relevant to their current goals.

Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon

The subjective experience of knowing which word is being sought, but not being able to retrieve the actual word.

Boundary Extension

The tendency to remember having viewed a greater portion of a scene than was actually shown at an earlier time

Memory Integration

Using background knowledge to incorporate new information into memory in a schema-consistent manner.

Schema Therapy

When a clinician and client work together in order to explore the client's core beliefs, and they also create appropriate new, more helpful strategies.

Verbatim Memory

Word-for-word recall of material presented at an earlier time; the research shows that people usually have poor verbatim memory