Cognitive - Chapter 8

The Prototype Approach and Semantic Memory Graded Structure

All members of a category are not really equal. A category has a graded structure, which begins with the most representative or prototypical members, and it continues on through the category's nonprototypical members.

Schemas and Memory Abstraction

Abstraction is a memory process that stores the meaning of a message, rather than the exact words. For example, you can probably remember much of the information about the concept ''family resemblance'' (p. 256), even though you cannot recall any specific sentence in its exact, original form. -->Ironically, the term abstract is too abstract. Here's one way to remember this word. When you read an article in a psychology journal, the abstract at the beginning of this article will summarize the article. However, you won't find those same exact words elsewhere in the article. -->People usually have poor word-for-word recall, or verbatim memory, even a few minutes after a passage has been presented --> Two approaches to the abstraction issue: the constructive approach and the pragmatic approach

The Prototype Approach and Semantic Memory Important Characteristic of Prototypes

Prototypes differ from the nonprototypical members of categories in three major respects. As you will see, prototypes have a special, privileged status within a category. 1. Prototypes are supplied as examples of a category 2. Prototypes are judged more quickly than nonprototypes, after semantic priming. 3. Prototypes share attributes in a family resemblance category.

Life Scripts

A list of events that a person believes would be most important throughout his or her lifetime. For example, Erdogan and his coauthors (2008) studied students in Turkey. These students listed far more positive events than negative events in their life script. This outcome is consistent with Theme 3 of this textbook.--> -->Steve Janssen and David Rubin (2011) discovered that people within a culture often share similar life scripts. -->A violation of a familiar script can be both surprising and unsettling (The Hero of A Movie Dies)

Schemas and Scripts

One common kind of schema is called a script. A script is a simple, well-structured sequence of events in a specified order; this script is associated with a highly familiar activity. -->A script is an abstraction, in other words, a prototype of a series of events that share an underlying similarity. The terms schema and script are often used interchangeably. However, script is actually a narrower term, referring to a sequence of events that unfold in a specified order

Inference

Refers to the logical interpretations and conclusions that were never part of the original stimulus material. --> Inferences allow you to go beyond the given information, greatly expanding your knowledge. Otherwise—if you had no concepts—you would need to examine each new chair you encountered, in order to figure out how to use it.

Comparing the Exemplar Approach with the Prototype Approach

Both propose that you make decisions about category membership by comparing a new item against some stored representation of the category. If similarity is strong enough, you conclude that this new item does indeed belong to the category. In many situations, these two approaches make similar predictions about semantic memory --However, the prototype approach proposes that your stored representation is a typical member of the category. In contrast, the exemplar approach proposes that your stored representation is a collection of numerous specific members of the category --> The exemplar approach emphasizes that people do not need to perform any kind of abstraction process. For example, suppose that you had read four case studies about depressed people. You would not need to devise a prototype—an ideal, typical person with depression. The exemplar approach argues that creating a prototypical person would force you to discard useful, specific data about individual cases. -->Problem with the exemplar approach --> Our semantic memory would quickly become overpopulated with numerous exemplars for numerous categories. The exemplar approach may therefore be more suitable when you think about a category that has relatively few members. -->In contrast, the prototype approach may be more suitable when considering a category that has numerous members. Ex. ''fruit'' or ''animal.'' Despite the encouraging results from Heit and Barsalou's (1996) study, the exemplar approach may be simply too bulky for some purposes. In many situations, it is not effective to use a classification strategy based purely on exemplars. -->Individual differences may be substantial in the way people represent categories. Perhaps some people store information about specific exemplars, especially for categories in which they have expertise. Other people may construct categories that do not include information about specific exemplars. Instead, these individuals may construct categories based on more generic prototypes. -In reality, semantic memory seems to be quite flexible. The prototype approach and the exemplar approach may both operate, and a concept could include information about both prototypes and specific exemplars. In fact, one possibility is that the left hemisphere of your brain tends to store prototypes, and the right hemisphere tends to store exemplars. People may in fact use a combination of prototype strategies and exemplar strategies when they form categories in everyday life.

Schemas and Boundary Extension

Boundary extension refers to our tendency to remember having viewed a greater portion of a scene than was actually shown. (Trash Can / Picket Fence Example) -->We have a schema for a scene like the one depicted in Demonstration 8.6, which we could call ''a photo of someone's garbage area,'' and our cognitive processes fill in the incomplete objects. Earlier topics in this discussion of schemas are verbal; in boundary extension, however, the material is visual. Still, our schemas for complete objects help us fill in missing material during a memory task. -->Helene Intraub & colleagues --> Showed students a series of photos like the garbage scene in Demonstration 8.6. Photo was shown briefly. Immediately afterward, students were instructed to draw an exact replica. Consistently produced a sketch that extended the boundaries beyond the view presented in the original photo. As a result, they drew more of the background that surrounded the central figure, and they also depicted a complete figure, rather than a partial one. --> We comprehend a photograph by activating a perceptual schema. This schema features a complete central figure in the photo, but it also includes a mental representation of visual information that is just outside the boundaries of the photo. We also use perceptual schemas when we look at real-life scenes. Notice why schemas are relevant in boundary extension: Based on our expectations, we create perceptual schemas that extend beyond the edges of the photograph and beyond the scope of our retinas -->Eyewitnesses may recall having seen some features of a suspect's face, even though these features were not actually visible at the scene of the crime. We "fill in the blanks"

How do we decide which objects are similar?

-->So far, we have been considering terminology, such as categories and concepts, as well as the situated cognition approach to knowledge. Each of these approaches provides a somewhat different perspective on the nature of similarity. These approaches include; (1) the prototype approach, (2) the exemplar approach, and (3) network models.∗

General Knowledge [2 Components]

1. Semantic memory --> Organized knowledge about the world. If you are a typical English-speaking adult, you know the meaning of about 20,000 to 100,000 words. 2. Schemas --> General knowledge about an object or event. A schema allows us to understand much more than just the simple combination of words within a sentence.

Research About Memory Integration Based on Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes are the beliefs and opinions that we associate with females and males --> When people know someone's gender, they often draw conclusions about that individual's personal characteristics. For example, people usually rate men as being more competitive than women, and they usually rate women as being more nurturant than men. Some gender stereotypes may be partly true --> Research methods from cognitive psychology can be used to examine people's gender stereotypes.

Semantic Memory

--> Organized knowledge about the world. Ex. "Tegucigalpa is the capital of Honduras." -->Includes; ---*General knowledge* (e.g., ''Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia''). ---*Lexical knowledge* (e.g., ''The word justice is related to the word equality''). ---*Conceptual Knowledge* (e.g., ''A square has four sides''). --> In contrast, episodic memory implies a personal experience, because episodic memory emphasizes when, where, or how this event happened to you. -->Your semantic memory allows you to organize the objects you encounter. Even though the objects are not identical, you can combine together a wide variety of similar objects by using a single, one-word concept. This coding process greatly reduces the space required for storage, because many objects can all be stored with the same label.

PDP & Default Assignment

--> PDP model allows us to explain how human memory can help us when some information is missing. Specifically, people can make a spontaneous generalization by using individual cases to draw inferences about general information. Suppose that your memory stores the information in Figure 8.3 and similar information about other college students. Suppose, also, that someone asks you whether engineering students tend to be politically conservative. PDP theory suggests that the clue engineering student would activate information about the engineering students you know, including information about their political orientation. You would reply that they do tend to be politically conservative, even though you did not directly store this statement in your memory. -->The PDP model emphasizes that we do not simply retrieve a memory in the same fashion that we might retrieve a book from a library. Instead, we reconstruct a memory, and this memory sometimes includes inappropriate information PDP models also allow us to fill in missing information about a particular person or a particular object by making a best guess; we can make a default assignment based on information from other similar people or objects -->Suppose, for example, that you meet Christina, who happens to be an engineering student. Someone asks you about Christina's political preferences, but you have never discussed politics with her. This question will activate information in the network about the political leanings of other engineers. Based on a default assignment, you would reply that she is probably conservative. Incidentally, students sometimes confuse the terms spontaneous generalization and default assignment. Remember that spontaneous generalization means that we draw a conclusion about a general category (for example, the category ''engineering students''). In contrast, default assignment means that we draw a conclusion about a specific member of a category (for example, a particular engineering student).

Section Summary II

1. A schema is generalized knowledge about a situation, an event, or a person; schemas are a kind of heuristic, in other words, a general rule that is typically accurate; schemas are important in many areas of psychology. 2. A script is a kind of schema that describes a simple, well-structured sequence of events, for example, a life script about the important events in a person's life; research shows that we can recall the elements in a script more accurately if the script is identified at the outset. 3. Schemas may operate during memory selection; for example, people recall items consistent with an office schema. However, we often recall schema- inconsistent information, for example, when a major event is surprising and inconsistent with the standard schema. 4. When we remember a scene, we often ''remember'' seeing complete objects, even though we really saw only parts of those objects (boundary extension). 5. According to the constructive model of memory, schemas encourage memory abstraction, so that people tend to remember the general meaning of a message, even if they forget the detail. According to the pragmatic view of memory, people often remember the exact words in a message when the specific words really matter. Both perspectives seem to operate, depending on the circumstances. 6. Schemas also influence memory integration; in Bartlett's classic research, people ''recalled'' information that never actually appeared in the original material. The tendency is stronger if recall is delayed and if people are performing another memory task at the same time. 7. The research on gender stereotypes shows that people frequently make schema- consistent inferences in explicit memory (e.g., a recognition test) and in implicit memory, for instance with the ERP technique and the IAT task. Cross-cultural research shows that countries with the highest scores on the IAT are also the countries where boys earn higher scores than girls on a test that measures performance in science and mathematics

Characteristics of the PDP approach

1. As suggested by the name parallel distributed processing, cognitive processes are based on parallel operations, rather than serial operations. Therefore, many patterns of activation may be proceeding simultaneously. 2. A network contains basic neuron-like units or nodes, which are connected together so that a specific node has many links to other nodes. (Notice that this concept is captured in the alternate name for the theory: connectionism.) PDP theorists argue that most cognitive processes can be explained by the activation of these networks. 3. As we noted on page 264, this process of spreading information from one node to other nodes is called spreading activation. As the name ''parallel distributed processing'' also suggests, a concept is represented by the pattern of activity distributed throughout a set of nodes. Notice that this view is very different from the commonsense idea that all the information you know about a particular person or object is stored in one specific location in your brain. 4. Consistent with the concept of situated cognition, the current context often activates only certain components of a concept's meaning. If you stroll past the meat department at your grocery store, you won't necessarily connect those plastic-wrapped items with the animal that clucks, pecks for food, and lays eggs. Each of the clues in Task A of Demonstration 8.3 probably reminded you of several possible candidates. Perhaps you thought of the correct answer after just a few clues, even though the description was not complete. Notice, however, that you did not use a serial search, conducting a complete search of all orange objects before beginning a second search of all below-ground objects, then all vegetables, then all rabbit-endorsed items. As we just noted, you used a parallel search, in which you considered all attributes simultaneously

Schemas & Memorry Selection Summary

1. If the information describes a minor event—and time is limited—people tend to remember information accurately when it is consistent with a schema (e.g., the desk and the chair in the ''office''). 2. If the information describes a minor event—and time is limited—people do not remember information that is inconsistent with the schema (e.g., the wine bottle and the picnic basket). 3. People seldom create a completely false memory for a lengthy event that did not occur (e.g., the lecturer did not dance across the room). 4. When the information describes a major event that is inconsistent with the standard schema, people are likely to remember that event (e.g., the child who crashes into Sarah).

Section Summary: The Structure of Semantic Memory

1. Semantic memory includes both general knowledge and knowledge about language. 2. According to prototype theory, people compare new stimuli with prototypes (most typical examples) in order to categorize them. People frequently supply prototypes as examples of a category, and they judge prototypes more quickly after semantic priming. Prototypes also share a large number of attributes with other items in the same family-resemblance category. 3. According to prototype theory, when people discuss a particular item, they use basic-level categories more often than subordinate-level or superordinate-level categories when identifying objects. Basic-level names are more likely to produce the semantic priming effect, and different levels of categorization activate different regions of the brain. 4. Researchers have used the prototype approach to examine social relationships by studying (a) the prototype of compassionate love and (b) the prototype of ''being there'' for a romantic partner. 5. The exemplar approach proposes that we classify a new stimulus by deciding how closely it resembles specific examples (i.e., exemplars) that we have already learned. The research suggests that our concepts may indeed include information about less typical exemplars. It's possible that people may use both prototypes and exemplars to represent concepts. 6. Anderson's ACT-R model attempts to explain a wide variety of cognitive processes. His model of declarative knowledge represents both sentences and concepts with a propositional-network structure. 7. Another network model is called the parallel distributed processing (PDP) or connectionist approach. It proposes that (a) cognitive processes are based on parallel operations, (b) networks link numerous neuron-like nodes, and (3) a concept is represented by a pattern of activity throughout that set of nodes. 8. The PDP approach also proposes features to explain cognitive phenomena such as spontaneous generalization, default assignment, the strengthening of connections, and graceful degradation.

Four Theoretical Features of PDP -Connection Weights

1. The connections between these neuron-like units are weighted, and these connection weights determine how much activation one unit can pass on to another unit (McClelland, 1999). As you learn more information, the values of these weights will change. 2. When a unit reaches a critical level of activation, it may affect another unit, either by exciting it (if the connection weight is positive) or by inhibiting it (if the connection weight is negative). Notice that this design resembles the excitation and inhibition of neurons in the human brain. Incidentally, Figure 8.3 shows only the excitatory connections, but you can imagine additional, inhibitory connections. For example, the characteristic polite might have a negative connection weight associated with some of the less civilized students in this figure. 3. Each new experience with a particular item will change the strength of connections among relevant units by adjusting the connection weights. For example, while you have been reading about the PDP approach, you have been changing the strength of connections between the name PDP approach and related terms such as network and spontaneous generalization. The next time you encounter the term PDP approach, all these related terms are likely to be activated. 4. Sometimes we have only partial memory for some information, rather than complete, perfect memory. The brain's ability to provide partial memory is called graceful degradation. For example, Chapter 6 discussed the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, which occurs when you know which target you are seeking, but you cannot retrieve the actual target. Consistent with graceful degradation, you may know the target's first letter and the general sound of the word—even though the word itself refuses to leap into memory. Graceful degradation also explains why the brain continues to work somewhat accurately, even when an accident, stroke, or dementia has destroyed portions of the cortex. Theorists emphasize that the PDP approach works better for tasks in which several processes operate simultaneously, as in pattern recognition, categorization, and memory search. However, many other cognitive tasks demand primarily serial processing. Later in this textbook, we will consider sentence production, problem solving, and reasoning. Many components of these cognitive skills require serial processing, rather than parallel operations. For these more linear mental processes, other models may be more effective.

Chapter Review Questions

1. Think of a prototype for the category ''household pet,'' and contrast it with a nonprototypical household pet. Compare these two animals with respect to (a) whether they would be supplied as examples of the category; (b) how quickly they could be judged after priming; and (c) the attributes that each would share with most other household pets. 2. Consider the basic-level category ''dime,'' incontrast to the superordinate-level category ''money'' and the subordinate-level category ''2005 dime.'' Describe these three levels, and then explain how the basic level has special status when we want to identify objects. Describe a person who would be most likely to use (a) the superordinate-level name, and (b) the subordinate-level name. Think of an area in which you have more knowledge than the average student; when would you be most likely to use subordinate-level descriptions? 3. Describe the prototype approach and the exemplar approach to semantic memory. How are they similar, and how are they different? Based on the discussion in this chapter, when would you be more likely to use a prototype approach in trying to categorize an object? When would you be more likely to use the exemplar approach? In each case, give an example from your daily experience. 4. Suppose that you read the following question on a true-false examination: ''A script is a kind of schema.'' Describe how you would process that question in terms of the exemplar approach and network models. 5. Think of some kind of information that could be represented in a diagram similar to the one in Figure 8.3 (for example, popular singers or famous novelists). Then provide examples of how the following terms could apply to this particular diagram: spontaneous generalization, default assignment, and graceful degradation. 6. If you were instructed to describe the characteristics of the PDP approach in a 5-minute overview, what would you say? Include examples, and also be sure to describe why the approach is called ''parallel distributed processing.'' Chapter 5 discussed the topic of expertise (pp. 147-151). Think about a specific area in which you have more expertise than a friend who is a novice. How might the two of you differ with respect to the kind of network you have developed? 7. Describe three scripts with which you are very familiar. How would these scripts be considered heuristics, rather than exact predictors of what will happen the next time you find yourself in one of the situations described in the script? 8. You probably have a fairly clear schema of the concept ''dentist'soffice.'' Focus on the discussion titled ''Schemas and Memory Selection'' (pp. 276-281) and point out the circumstances in which you would be likely to remember (a) schema-consistent material and (b) schema-inconsistent material. How might boundary extension operate when you try to reconstruct the scene that you see from the dentist's chair? 9. What evidence do we have from explicit memory tasks that gender stereotypes encourage us to draw inferences that are consistent with those stereotypes? How would the demand characteristics mentioned in Chapter 7 (p. 223) be relevant to explicit memory tasks? Then discuss the two implicit memory tasks described in the discussion about inferences, and explain why they may be more effective than explicit tasks in assessing people's stereotypes. 10. Think of a schema or a script that occurs frequently in your life. Explain how that schema or script might influence your memory during four different processes: memory selection, boundary extension, memory abstraction, and memory integration. Be sure to consider how memory sometimes favors schema-consistent information and sometimes favors schema-inconsistent information, as well as the cases when memory accurately reflects bottom-up processing.

Implicit Memory Tasks & Gender Stereotypes

1. Using neuroscience techniques to assess gender stereotypes. Osterhout and his coauthors (1997) assessed gender stereotypes by using a neuroscience technique. As you learned in Chapter 1, the event-related potential (ERP) technique records tiny fluctuations in the brain's electrical activity, in response to a stimulus. Previous researchers had tested people who were instructed to read sentences such as, ''I like my coffee with cream and dog'' (p. 273). As you would expect, the ERPs quickly changed in response to the surprising word dog. To examine gender stereotypes, Osterhout and his colleagues (1997) presented some sentences that would be consistent with gender stereotypes, such as, ''The nurse prepared herself for the operation.'' These stereotype-consistent sentences did not elicit a change in the ERPs. Now try Demonstration 8.8 on page 285, unless you have already tried it. In contrast, the ERPs changed significantly for stereotype-inconsistent sentences such as, ''The nurse prepared himself for the operation.'' In reading the word nurse, people had made the gender-stereotyped inference that the nurse must be female. Consequently, the unexpected, stereotype-inconsistent word himself produced changes in the ERPs. In a related study, White and her colleagues (2009) found similar results, with greater ERP changes for stereotype-inconsistent pairs of words.

Proposition / ACT-R Model

Anderson and his coauthors define a proposition as the smallest unit of knowledge that people can judge to be either true or false. For instance, the phrase white cat does not qualify as a proposition because we cannot determine whether it is true or false. According to Anderson's model, each of the following three statements qualifies as a proposition: 1. Susan gave a cat to Maria. 2. The cat was white. 3. Maria is the president of the club. -->These three propositions can appear by themselves, but they can also be combined into a sentence, such as the following: Susan gave a white cat to Maria, who is the president of the club. -->Figure 8.1 shows how this sentence could be represented by a propositional network. As you can see, each of the three propositions in the sentence is represented by a node, and the links are represented by arrows. Notice, too, that the network represents the important relationships in these three propositions. However, Figure 8.1 does not represent the exact wording of that key sentence. Propositions are abstract; they do not represent a specific set of words. -->Anderson suggests that each of the concepts in a proposition can be represented by its own individual network. Figure 8.2 --> Links between nodes become stronger as they are used more often. Practice is vitally important in developing more extensive semantic memory -->Anderson and his colleagues also conducted research, using fMRI. They examined how the changes in learning are reflected in selected regions of the cortex and the subcortex. For example, one task required people to access information that would be essential for performing other tasks. Anderson and his colleagues (2008) discovered that a specific region of the frontal lobe is activated in this situation.

Schemas and Memory Integration

Another important process in memory formation is integration. In memory integration, our background knowledge encourages us to take in new information in a schema-consistent fashion -As a result, people may remember this schema-consistent information, even though it was not part of the original stimulus material. -Once again, however, schemas do not always operate. For example, suppose that you are tested soon after you learned some new information. Your background knowledge may not alter that new information. In contrast, schema-consistent integration is more likely when there is a delay of a day or two before you are asked to recall the new material. The research also suggests that our schemas may not influence memory if we are working on one relatively simple memory task. However, when people work on two simultaneous memory tasks, Sherman and Bessenoff (1999) found that they committed many schema-consistent errors.

The Constructive Approach & Abstraction False Alarm

Bransford and Franks (1971) asked the participants in their study to listen to sentences from several different stories. Then the participants were given a recognition test that also included some new items, many of which were combinations of the earlier sentences. Nonetheless, people were convinced that they had seen these new items before. This kind of error is called a false alarm. In memory research, a false alarm occurs when people ''remember'' an item that was not originally presented. --> People were especially likely to make false alarms when a complex sentence was consistent with the original schema. -->According to the constructive model of memory, people integrate information from individual sentences in order to construct larger ideas. Later, they believe that they have already seen those complex sentences because they have combined the various facts in memory. Once sentences are fused in memory, we cannot untangle them into their original components and recall those components verbatim.

Individual Differences: Country of Residence and Gender Stereotypes

Brian Nosek and his colleagues (2009) worked with researchers in 34 different countries to gather the relevant information. --> This widely used test is called the ''2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study'' (TIMS) --> Fortunately, the average scores on this test were available for 8th grade females and males in 34 different countries. Nosek and his coauthors (2009) used these data to calculate the ''male advantage'' for each country, specifically, the males' average score on the TIMS test minus the females' average on the TIMS test -->Furthermore, these researchers also recorded the average scores on the Implicit Association Test for each country, because the test is available online in 17 different languages. About 300,000 people in those 34 countries had completed this test by the time these researchers gathered their data. -->The results showed that the countries with the highest scores on the IAT measure of gender stereotyping were also likely to have the highest ''male advantage'' scores on both the math and science test (TIMS). Specifically, the correlation was +.34 for math scores and +.39 for science scores. In other words, the countries with the highest measures of gender stereotyping were also more likely to be the countries where males performed better than females in both math and science. Incidentally, the United States and Canada had average scores on both the IAT and the male-advantage measure. You know from your psychology courses that correlational data can be difficult to interpret. However, Nosek and his coauthors (2009) write that a ''likely explanation for the relation is that both the 8th grade test takers and the diverse IAT participants of a given country are influenced by the same socio-cultural context'' (p. 10596). The title of this current chapter is ''General Knowledge.'' In this case, people's semantic memory and schemas include information about gender differences, and the strength of this knowledge varies from country to country.

Using the Implicit Association Test to assess gender stereotypes

Brian Nosek, Mahzarin Banaji, and Anthony Greenwald (2002) used a very different method to assess implicit gender stereotypes. Specifically, they examined the gender stereotypes that mathematics is associated with males and that the arts are associated with females. Suppose that they had asked their research participants (college students at Yale University) an explicit question, such as: ''Is math more strongly associated with males than with females?'' When research is conducted with college students like these, the students are most likely to answer ''No.'' After all, when students are asked an explicit question like this, they have time to be analytical and to recall that a ''Yes'' answer would not be socially appropriate. -->The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is based on the principle that people can mentally pair two related words together much more easily than they can pair two unrelated words. -->at in front of a computer screen that presented a series of words. On a typical trial—where the pairings were consistent with gender stereotypes—the participant would be told to press the key on the left if the word was related to math (e.g., calculus or numbers) and also if the word was related to males (e.g., uncle or son). This same participant would be told to press the key on the right if the word was related to the arts (e.g., poetry or dance) and also if the word was related to females (e.g., aunt or daughter). Told to respond quickly -->Then the instructions shifted so that the pairings were now inconsistent with gender stereotypes. Now, on a typical trial, the participant would press the left key if the word was related to math and also if the word was related to females. Also, the participant would press the right key if the word was related to the arts and also if the word was related to males. People with strong gender stereotypes should have difficulty associating math-related terms with women and arts-related terms with men. Their responses should therefore be much slower for this second part of the task. --> Nosek and his coauthors (2002) found that the students responded significantly faster to the stereotype-consistent pairings (the first task), compared to the stereotype- inconsistent pairings (the second task). --> Sadly, this anti-math tendency was even found with some women who were math majors! In other words, gender stereotypes are not innocent cognitive tendencies. Instead, these stereotypes can have the power to influence people's self-images and their sense of academic competence.

The Prototype of ''Being There'' for a Romantic Partner Knowledge of Indicators Scale Validity

Bulent Turan and Leonard Horowitz focused on a romantic partner being sensitive and supportive, that is, ''being there for me'' when needed. Asked U.S. college students to list three attributes that would be relevant when a potential romantic partner could be counted on to ''be there'' at some future time of major stress. --> Identified 55 distinct attributes --> Second group rated how useful each of these attributes would be in times of stress. For example, these students gave a high rating to the attribute, ''Notices changes in my mood and asks if anything is wrong.'' They gave a low rating to ''Doesn't mind being intimate with me in public.'' --> Information from second group allowed Turan and Horowitz to create a psychological test, which they called the ''Knowledge of Indicators Scale.'' People could earn a high score on this test if they gave high ratings for items such as noticing mood changes, as well as low ratings for irrelevant items such as being intimate in public. Researchers needed to establish test's validity, or its ability to predict a person's performance in another situation, in this case a measure of social sensitivity. -->To assess the validity of the Knowledge of Indicators Scale, Turan and Horowitz then tested a third group of students. All of these students had completed this scale earlier in the semester. These students then participated in a study in which they listened to another student. This student was actually a confederate, and she had memorized a specific script that lasted 13 minutes. Her script described a relationship problem that she was having with her boyfriend. For example, this confederate described how her boyfriend had forgotten to ask her about an important job interview that she had recently described to him. As a final task, the ''real students'' in this third group were asked to summarize the conversation, and the researchers scored how well each student had recalled these specific problems. The results showed a significant correlation (r = +.45) between the two relevant measures. Specifically, those students who had high scores on the Knowledge of Indicators Scale were also more likely to remember the details about this woman's problems with her boyfriend. In other words, those students who understand that a romantic partner should be sensitive and supportive were also likely to remember the specific details about why this woman's boyfriend had not been ''there for her.'

Category & Concepts

Category --> a set of objects that belong together. Your cognitive system considers these objects to be at least partly equivalent. Ex. Fruits (Apples & Strawberries) --> Tells us something useful about their members. For example, suppose that you hear someone say, ''Rambutan is a fruit.'' You conclude that you should probably eat it in a salad or a dessert, instead of frying it with onions and freshly ground pepper. Concepts --> Mental representations of a category. How we group certain things into categories. In other words, the physical category called ''fruit'' is stored as a mental representation within your cerebral cortex. For instance, you have a concept of ''fruit,'' which refers to your mental representation of the objects in that category. Tradition in cognitive psychology of using italics for the actual word names (e.g., justice) and quotation marks for categories and concepts (e.g., ''fruit'').

How Schemas Relate to the Themes of This Book

Clearly, schemas emphasize how top-down processing and bottom-up processing work together, a cognitive principle highlighted in Theme 5. Schemas allow us to predict what will happen in a new. -->Schemas are one kind of *heuristic*, which is a general rule that is typically accurate. --> Schemas also emphasize the active nature of our cognitive processes (Theme 1). An event happens, and we immediately try to think how the event is related to an established schema. -->However, schemas will sometimes lead us astray, and we can make errors. Still, these errors usually make sense within the framework of that schema. Consistent with Theme 2, our cognitive processes are generally accurate, and our mistakes are typically rational.

Schema Therapy

Clinical psychologists who emphasize cognitive-behavioral approaches may use schema therapy. In schema therapy, the clinician and the client may work together in order to explore the client's core beliefs and create appropriate new, more helpful strategies. For example, imagine a female client who says, ''My boss praised me, but I didn't deserve it.'' The therapist can help her modify her interpretation of that praise

Research Study 1 & Gender Stereotypes

Dunning and Sherman (1997) assessed gender stereotypes by using a recognition- memory task. They instructed students to read sentences such as, ''The women at the office liked to talk around the water cooler.'' Later, the participants were tested for recognition memory. Specifically, participants saw a series of sentences. They were told to respond ''old'' if they had previously seen that same exact sentence, earlier in the session. Otherwise, they should respond ''new.'' -->Let's look at the results for new sentences that were consistent with a widely held gender stereotype about women's conversations: ''The women at the office liked to gossip around the water cooler.'' The participants responded ''old'' to 29% of these sentences. Other new sentences were inconsistent with another widely held stereotype: ''The women at the office liked to talk sports around the water cooler.'' The participants responded ''old'' to only 18% of these sentences. Apparently, when people saw the original sentence, they sometimes made the stereotype-consistent inference that the women must have been gossiping. They were less likely to make the gender-inconsistent inference that the women were discussing sports. -->Example of explicit memory task.The participants in this study knew that their memory was being tested when they judged whether the sentences were old or new. People might guess that the researchers could be measuring their gender stereotypes, and they may be aware that it's not appropriate to hold rigid stereotypes -->To reduce this ''awareness problem,'' researchers have designed a variety of implicit memory tasks. The goal of these implicit memory measures is to assess people's gender stereotypes without asking them directly. Implicit memory measures are supposed to discourage people from providing socially desirable answers.

Basic-level names are more likely to produce the semantic priming effect

Eleanor Rosch and colleagues (1976) used a variant of the semantic priming task. -->Researchers present the name of an object, followed by two pictures. The participant must decide whether these two pictures are the same as one another. For example, you might hear the word apple and see pictures of two identical apples. The priming is effective because the presentation of this word allows you to create a mental representation of this word. This mental representation helps when you make the decision quickly. -->Participants made faster judgments if they saw a basic-level term like apple before judging the apples. However, priming with superordinate names (such as fruit) was not helpful. Apparently, when you hear the word fruit, you create a general representation of fruit, rather than a specific representation that helps you make a judgment about apples.

Prototypes share attributes in a family resemblance category --> Family Resembalence Category

Family resemblance means that no single attribute is shared by all examples of a concept; however, each example has at least one attribute in common with some other example of the concept -->Rosch and Mervis (1975) examined the role of prototypes in family resemblance categories. Asked group of students to make prototypicality judgments about members of several categories. For example, the students rated a car as being the most prototypical vehicle and a wheelchair as being the least prototypical vehicle on this list. Then, Rosch and Mervis asked a different group of people to list the attributes possessed by each item. The results showed that the most prototypical item also had the largest number of attributes in common with the other items in the category. For example, a car (the most prototypical vehicle) has wheels, moves horizontally, and uses fuel. In contrast, an elevator has relatively few attributes in common with other items. Is there any attribute you can identify that is both necessary and sufficient for either of these categories? Alternatively, would you conclude that the items on each list share only a ''family resemblance'' to one another?

The Prototype of Compassionate Love

Focuses on providing support to a romantic partner, as well as close friends, and even strangers. -->Fehr and Sprecher began their research by asking U.S. college students to list characteristics of the concept ''compassionate love.'' The researchers then eliminated any responses that only one person had suggested. Then they combined terms that were similar. Next, they identified the 10 attributes that were listed most often, as well as 10 attributes that were listed a moderate number of times, and 10 attributes that were seldom listed. -->Students at a Canadian university rated each of these 30 attributes on a scale where 1 equaled an extremely poor example of compassionate love, and 9 equaled an extremely good example of compassionate love. The students judged feeling protective toward the person, sacrifice, and pure to be least prototypical. In contrast, they judged the features of trust, honesty, and caring to be the three most prototypical characteristics. -->Fehr and Sprecher (2009) also gathered other information about these characteristics of compassionate love. For example, students responded very quickly when they were asked whether trust was a characteristic of compassionate love. In contrast, they responded signicantly more slowly when they judged the word pure. Notice that this is an example of the typicality effect, described on page 255. This effect occurs when people make judgments about typical items (prototypes) more quickly than atypical items (nonprototypes).

Background on Semantic Memory

Influences most of our cognitive activities. Helps us determine locations/read sentences/solve problems/make decisions. Categories and concepts are essential components of semantic memory. In fact, you need to divide up the world into categories in order to make sense of your knowledge.

Knowledge [Previous Chapters]

Helps you to perceive the stimuli that your visual and auditory systems gathered from the outside world. --> When you are having trouble paying attention to more than one message at a time, your knowledge may influence which message you choose to process and which one you choose to ignore (Chapter 3). --> Helps you chunk items together to aid your working memory. -->Knowledge provides the kind of expertise that can enhance your long-term memory for the events in your life. • Knowledge can help you organize information more effectively, so that you can recall it more accurately (Chapter 6). • Knowledge—such as the alignment heuristic—can distort your memories about spatial relationships, making them seem more regular than they actually are (Chapter 7).

The Current Status of Schemas and Memory Abstraction

In reality, the constructive approach and the pragmatic approach to memory abstraction are actually compatible. Specifically, in many cases, we do integrate information from individual sentences so that we can construct a schema, especially when we don't need to remem- ber the exact words. However, in some cases, we know that the specific words do matter, and so we pay close attention to the precise wording. If you are rehearsing for a play, or you are quarreling with a friend, you will need to remember more than the overall gist of a verbal message.

Chapter Section 2

In this second part of the chapter, let's examine four ways in which schemas and scripts can operate during cognitive processing: 1. During the selection of material to be remembered. 2. In boundary extension (when your memory stores a scene). 3. During memory abstraction (when your memory stores the meaning, but not the specific details of the material). 4. During memory integration (when your memory forms a well-integrated representation of the material).

Anderson's ACT-R Approach Declarative Knowledge

John Anderson and colleagues have constructed a series of network models, which they now call ACT- R. ACT-R is an acronym for ''Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational''; this approach attempts to account for a wide variety of tasks -->Models that we've considered so far have a limited goal: to explain how we organize our cognitive concepts. In contrast, Anderson created ACT-R and its variants to explain every topic in your textbook. For example, these topics would include memory, learning, spatial cognition, language, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making --> Focus on the model's more specific view of declarative knowledge, or knowledge about facts and things. --> The meaning of a sentence can be represented by a propositional network, which is a pattern of interconnected propositions.

PDP Approach and Individuals Spontanteous Generation

Our knowledge about a group of individuals might be stored by connections that link these people with their personal characteristics. James McClelland's (1981) original example portrayed members of two gangs of small-time criminals, the Jets and the Sharks. We'll use a simpler and presumably more familiar example that features five college students. Table 8.2 lists these students, together with their college majors, years in school, and political orientations.

Basic-level Names are used to Identify Objects

Likely to use basic-level naming in everyday life. --> Example call it a pen rather than the superordinate term writing instrument or the subordinate term Paper Mate Flair pen. Eleanor Rosch and colleagues (1976) asked people to look at a series of pictures and identify each object. They found that people typically preferred to use basic-level names. Apparently, the basic-level name gives enough information without being overly detailed. -->In addition, people produce the basic-level names faster than either the superordinate or the subordinate names. Furthermore, when people see superordinate or subordinate terms, they frequently remember the basic-level version of these terms when they are later tested for recall. In other words, the basic level does have special, privileged status.

Situated Cognition Approach

Make use of information in immediate environment or situation. As a result, our knowledge often depends on the context that surrounds us. --> With respect to our general knowledge, we tend to code a concept in terms of the context in which we learned this information. Without these rich resources, it's often difficult to transfer a concept from the classroom to the context of a real-life situation, as you may discover when you try to use your Spanish if you travel to Latin America.

The Pragmatic Approach

Murphy and Shapiro (1994) developed a different view of memory for sentences, which they call the pragmatic view of text memory. The pragmatic view of memory proposes that people pay attention to the aspect of a message that is most relevant to their current goals. In other words: 1. People know that they usually need to accurately recall the gist of a sentence. 2. They also know that they usually do not need to remember the specific wording of the sentences. 3. However, in those cases where they do need to pay attention to the specific wording, then they know that their verbatim memory needs to be highly accurate. -->Murphy and Shapiro (1994) speculated that people are particularly likely to pay attention to the exact wording of a sentence if the words are part of a criticism or an insult. After all, from the pragmatic viewpoint, the exact words do matter if someone is insulting you! - Conducted Study with phrase ''It never occurred to me that I would be a mother so young''. One group read that sentence within a letter, supposedly written to her cousin Paul. The letter chatted about her new infant in a bland fashion. -Second group read a letter that was supposedly written by Samantha to her boyfriend, Arthur. Ten of the sentences that had been neutral in the bland letter to cousin Paul now appeared in a sarcastic context, though the exact words were identical. For example, the sentence, ''It never occurred to me that I would be a mother so young'' now referred to Arthur's infantile behavior. -People rarely made the mistake of falsely ''recognizing'' the irrelevant sentences. However, correct recognition (''Hits'') was higher for the sentences from the sarcastic condition than for the sentences in the bland condition. Furthermore, people made more false alarms for the paraphrases of the bland sentences than for the paraphrases of the sarcastic sentences. We can compare the overall accuracy for the two conditions by subtracting the false alarms from the correct responses. As you can see, people were much more accurate in their verbatim memory for the sarcastic version (43%) than for the bland version (17%). Similar results have been reported by Schonpflug (2008). Perhaps we are especially sensitive about emotionally threatening material, so we make an effort to recall the exact words of the sentences.

Different levels of categorization activate different regions of the brain

Neuroscience research using PET scans has examined whether different regions of the brain tend to process different category levels. On a typical trial, a participant might be asked to judge whether a word (e.g., toy, doll, or rag doll) matched a particular picture. This research showed that a superordinate term (e.g., toy) is more likely than a basic-level term (e.g., doll) to activate part of the prefrontal cortex. This finding makes sense because this part of the cortex processes language and associative memory. If you need to decide whether the picture of the doll qualifies as a toy, you must consult your memory about category membership. -->In contrast, the research showed that subordinate terms (e.g., rag doll) are more likely than basic-level terms (e.g., doll) to activate part of the parietal region of the brain. As Chapter 3 noted, the parietal lobe is active when you perform a visual search. Again, this finding makes sense. To answer the question about a rag doll, you must shift your attention away from the general shape of the object. For example, you need to conduct a visual search, so that you can determine if the fabric and the style of the doll indeed permit it to be categorized as a ''rag doll.''

Prototypes are supplied as examples of a category Typicality Effect

People judge some items to be better examples of a concept than other items. Ex. Mervis and her colleagues (1976) examined some norms. These norms are based on examples that people had provided for categories such as ''birds,'' ''fruit,'' and ''sports.'' Then asked a different group of people to supply prototype ratings for each of these examples. According to a statistical analysis, the items that were rated most prototypical were the same items that people had supplied most frequently in the category norms. For instance, for the category ''bird,'' people judged a robin to be very prototypical, and robin was very frequently listed as an example of the category ''bird.'' In contrast, people rated a penguin as low on the prototype scale, and penguin was only rarely listed as an example of the category ''bird.'' In other words, if someone asks you to name a member of a category, you will probably name a prototype. -->Prototype approach accounts well for the typicality effect. In this procedure, participants are asked whether an item belongs to a particular category. The typicality effect occurs when people judge typical items (prototypes) faster than items that are not typical (nonprototypes). For instance, when judging whether items belong to the category ''bird,'' people judge robin more quickly than penguin. Theorists point out that the typicality effect operates with everyday items, so the results are more useful than research conducted only with artificial concepts. -->Summarize: The research shows that people often supply prototypes as examples, more frequently than they supply nonprototypes. People make quicker judgments about category membership when assessing prototypes, rather than nonprototypes.

Identifying the Script in Advance

People recall a script more accurately if the script has been clearly identified in advance. --> Trafimow and Wyer (1993) developed four different scripts, each describing a familiar sequence of actions: photocopying a piece of paper, cashing a check, making tea, and taking the subway. Also added some details that were irrelevant to the script, such as taking a piece of candy out of a pocket. -->In some cases, the script-identifying event was presented first. In other cases, the script-identifying event was presented last. For instance, in Demonstration 8.4, you saw the information about copying the piece of paper after you had read the script. -->Five minutes after reading all four descriptions, the participants were asked to recall the events from the four original descriptions. When the script-identifying event had been presented first, participants recalled 23% of those events. In contrast, they recalled only 10% when the script-identifying event had been presented last. Events in a sequence are much more memorable if you understand—from the very beginning—that these events are all part of a standard script.

The Prototype Approach and Semantic Memory Prototypicality

Proposed by Eleanor Rosch --> we organize each category on the basis of a prototype. --> A prototype is an item that is the best, most typical example of a category; a prototype therefore is the ideal representative of this category. --> According to this prototype approach, you decide whether a particular item belongs to a category by comparing this item with a prototype. If the item is similar to the prototype, you include that item within this category. Would conclude that a robin is a bird because it matches your ideal prototype for a bird. --> Prototypicality --> Degree to which an item is representative of their category. A robin and a sparrow are very prototypical birds, whereas an ostrich & penguin are typically nonprototypes. --> However, the situated cognition approach emphasizes the importance of context and specific situations. In the context of a zoo, for example, you might consider an ostrich and a penguin to be prototypical -->Some classic earlier theories had proposed that an item could belong to a category as long as it possessed the appropriate necessary and sufficient features. In those theories, category membership is very clear-cut. For example, for the category ''bachelor,'' two defining features would be male and unmarried. However, don't you think that your 32-year-old unmarried male cousin would be a much better example of a bachelor than either your 2-year-old nephew? All two individuals are indeed male and unmarried. Therefore, a ''necessary and sufficient'' model would need to conclude that all three deserve to be categorized as ''bachelors.'' That conclusion doesn't seem reasonable. In contrast, the prototype approach would argue that not all members of the category ''bachelor'' are created equal. Instead, your cousin is a more prototypical bachelor than your nephew or the priest.

The Parallel Distributed Processing Approach

Proposes that cognitive processes can be represented by a model in which activation flows through networks that link together a large number of simple, neuron-like units -->PDP approach emphasizes that we should represent these concepts in terms of networks, rather than specific locations in the brain. -->Distributed = These activations occur in several different locations. Parallel = These activations take place simultaneously, rather than one after another. -->Theorists often use two other names—connectionism and neural networks—in addition to ''the PDP approach.'' The researchers who designed this approach tried to construct their model by taking into account the physiological and structural properties of human neurons. -->The designers of the PDP approach believe that the earlier models based on categorization were too restrictive. Timothy Rogers and James McClelland point out a representative problem. Suppose that our categories are responsible for guiding how we store knowledge and how we generalize knowledge. How would the various categories manage to interact with one another? -->Consider this example: A chicken belongs to the categories of ''bird,'' ''animal,'' and ''a food that many people eat.'' We wouldn't be able to genuinely understand the concept of ''chicken'' unless those categories could somehow work together. The prototype approach is useful in many situations. However, the PDP approach provides a more flexible account for the richness, flexibility, and subtlety of our knowledge about the world.

Prototypes are judged more quickly than nonprototypes, after semantic priming -->Semantic Priming Effect

SPE --> People respond faster to an item if it was preceded by an item with similar meaning. -->Semantic priming facilitates people's responses to prototypes significantly more than it facilitates their responses to nonprototypes. -->Ex. Participating in study on priming. Task is to judge pairs of similar colors and to answer whether they are the same. On some occasions, you see the name of the color before you must judge the pair of colors; these are the primed trials. On other occasions, you do not see a color name as a ''warning''; these are the unprimed trials. Rosch (1975) tried this priming setup for both prototype colors (for example, a true, bright red) and nonprototype colors (for example, a muddy red). -->Rosch's results showed that priming was very helpful when people made judgments about prototypical colors. Responded more quickly after primed trials than after nonprimed trials. However, priming actually inhibited the judgments for nonprototypical colors. In other words, if you see the word red, you expect to see a true, bright red color. However, if the color is a dark, muddy red, the priming offers no advantage. Instead, you actually need extra time in order to reconcile your image of a bright, vivid color with the muddy color you actually see on the screen.

Background on Schemas and Scripts

Schema theories propose that our memories encode ''generic'' information about a situation. Then we use this information to understand and remember new examples of the schema. Specifically, schemas guide your recognition and understanding of new examples because you say to yourself, ''This is just like what happened when"

Conclusions About Schemas

Schemas can influence memory (1) in the initial selection of material, (2) in remembering visual scenes, (3) in abstraction, and (4) even in the final process of integration. However, we need to emphasize that our cognitive processes are often accurate, consistent with Theme 2. For instance: 1. We often select material for memory that is not consistent with our schemas. 2. We may sometimes remember that we actually saw only a portion of an object, rather than the complete object. 3. We frequently recall the exact words of a passage as it was originally rather than storing an abstract memory. (Otherwise, chorus directors would have resigned long ago.) 4. We may keep the elements in memory isolated from each other, rather than integrating these memories together. Yes, schemas clearly can influence memory. However, the influence is far from complete. After all, as Theme 5 states, our cognitive processes are guided by bottom- up processing, as well as top-down processing. Therefore, we select, recall both visual scenes and verbal passages and integrate many unique features of each stimulus, in addition to the schema-consistent features that match our background knowledge.

Schemas and Memory Selection

Several Studies --> Lead to general conclusions *Brewer and Treyens* (1981) --> Asked participants in their study to wait, one at a time, in the room pictured in this demonstration. After 35 seconds, the experimenter asked the participant to move to a nearby room. Then, the experimenter asked each participant to remember everything in the room in which he or she had waited. The results showed that people were highly likely to recall objects consistent with the ''office schema" (only a few recalled the wine bottle and the picnic basket which were not consistent with the office schema.) When time is limited people may not have time to process these schema-irrelevant items. Some people ''remembered'' schema-consistent items that were not in the room (books). Number of schema-consistent errors is even greater after a two-day delay *Neuschatz & coauthors* instructed students to watch a video of a lecture. Were likely to make schema-consistent errors that were consistent with the ''lecture schema,'' such as the lecturer referring to a concept from the previous lecture. The students were not likely to falsely remember events inconsistent with the ''lecture schema,'' such as the lecturer dancing across the floor. Sometimes show better recall for material that violates our expectations. More likely to recall schema-inconsistent material when that material is especially vivid and surprising *Davidson --> Schema-Inconsistent Material* --> Asked participants to read stories that described well-known schemas such as ''going to the movies.'' Ex. Described a woman going to the movies. Participants were very likely to remember a schema-inconsistent sentence about a child who ran through the movie theater and smashed into Sarah. In contrast, they were less likely to remember a schema-consistent sentence about an usher tearing the movie tickets in half and giving Sarah the stubs. -->These results about schemas and memory may seem inconsistent. However, the outcome may depend on factors such as the details of the study and the length of the specific episode. In general, the results show the following trends:

The Classic Research on Memory Integration

Sir Frederick Bartlett (1932) British researcher who studied people's memory for natural language material. Bartlett's theories and techniques foreshadowed the theories of contemporary cognitive psychologists. He also pioneered the research on applied cognition. For example, his laboratory research could be generalized to our everyday patterns of remembering and forgetting --> In Bartlett's (1932) best-known series of studies, he asked British students to read a Native American story called ''The War of the Ghosts.'' They were then asked to recall the story 15 minutes later. Bartlett found that the participants tended to omit material that did not make sense from the viewpoint of British students. For example, they often omitted a portion of the story in which a ghost had attacked someone, and this person did not feel the wound. These students also tended to shape the story into a more familiar framework so that it made sense from a British perspective. In many cases, the students' version was more similar to British fairy tales. -->Bartlett also asked his participants to recall the story again, after a delay of several days. As time passed after hearing the original story, the participants borrowed more heavily from their previous knowledge and included less information from the original story. --> As Brewer (2000) emphasizes, the research on schemas demonstrates how our cognitive processes actively work to make sense out of puzzling information (Theme 1). Specifically, our top-down processes often shape our memory for complex material (Theme 5).

Schemas & Scripts

So far, our discussion of general knowledge has focused on words, concepts, and—occasionally—sentences. Cognitive processes also depend on world knowledge that is much more complex. For example, our knowledge includes information about familiar situations, behavior, and other ''packages'' of things we know. This generalized, well-integrated knowledge about a situation, an event, or a person is called a schema -->Ex. Schema for the interior of a hardware store. It should have wrenches, cans of paint, garden hoses, and light bulbs. The store certainly should not have psychology textbooks, DVDs of Verdi operas, or birthday cakes.

A Representative Study on the Exemplar Approach

Successfully predicted people's performance on artificial categories, such as cartoon faces that can be shown with or without glasses, smiling or frowning, and so on. How does this approach work with categories we use in our everyday lives? -->Heit and Barsalou (1996) wanted to determine whether the exemplar approach could explain the structure of several superordinate categories, such as ''animal.'' When people make judgments about animals, do they base these judgments on specific exemplars or general prototypes - Asked group of undergraduates to supply the first example that came to mind for each of the seven basic-level categories in Part A of Demonstration 8.2. Then a second group of undergraduates rated the typicality of each of those examples, with respect to the superordinate category ''animal.'' For instance, this second group would rate each example—such as frog or salamander—in terms of whether it was typical of the concept ''animal.'' That second group also rated the seven basic-level categories. -->Wanted to see whether they could create an equation that would accurately predict—for the category ''animal''—the typicality of the rating of the seven categories (''amphibian,'' ''bird,'' ''fish,'' and so on), based on the exemplars generated in a task like Task A of Demonstration 8.2. -->Took into account the frequency of each of those exemplars. For example, the basic-level category ''insect'' frequently produced the exemplar bee but rarely produced the exemplar Japanese beetle. They also took into account the typicality ratings, similar to those you provided in Task B of the demonstration. -->Information about exemplar frequency and exemplar typicality did accurately predict which of the seven categories were most typical for the superordinate category ''animal'' (Task C). In fact, the correlation between the predicted typicality and the actual typicality was statistically significant (r = +.92), indicating an extremely strong relationship. For example, mammals were considered the most typical animals, and microorganisms were the least typical. -->The prototype approach suggests that our categories consider only the most typical items (Wisniewski, 2002). If this proposal is correct, then we can forget about the less typical items, and our categories would not be substantially changed. In another part of their study, Heit and Barsalou (1996) tried eliminating the less typical exemplars from the equation. The correlation between predicted typicality and actual typicality decreased significantly. Notice the implications of this study: Suppose that you are asked a question such as, ''How typical is an insect, with respect to the category 'animal'?'' To make that judgment, you certainly think about a very prototypical insect—perhaps a combination of a bee and a fly. However, you also include some information about a caterpillar, a grasshopper, and maybe even a Japanese beetle.

Applying the Prototype Approach to Social Relationships

The prototype approach to semantic memory is especially useful when we consider socially relevant concepts such as ''bachelor'' and ''love relationships'' -->Researchers began to realize that we do not need to restrict cognitive explanations to impersonal concepts such as clothing, vegetables, and birds. For example, your semantic memory also processes your concepts about social interactions. Specifically, the prototype approach helps us understand two kinds of love relationships. As Chapter 1 emphasizes, psychologists are increasingly likely to use an interdisciplinary approach. For instance, this particular topic combines cognitive psychology and social psychology. 1. The Prototype of Compassionate Love 2. The Prototype of ''Being There'' for a Romantic Partner

Conclusions About the Prototype Approach

The advantages of The Prototype Approach--> 1. Account's for our ability to form concepts about groups that are loosely structured. For example, we can create a concept for stimuli that merely share a family resemblance, when the members of a category have no single characteristic in common. 2. Can be applied to complex social relationships, as well as inanimate objects and nonsocial categories -->Other research has applied this approach to the personality trait of dominance and to the experience of depression -->An ideal model of semantic memory must also acknowledge that concepts can be unstable and variable. For example, our notions about the ideal prototype can shift as time passes and the context changes. -->Study by Laura Novick (2003) about prototypical vehicles. She found that U.S. college students rated airplane as being a prototypical vehicle during the period immediately following the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. In contrast, airplane had been considered a nonprototypical vehicle in studies during the five years prior to this date. Furthermore, when the media coverage decreased after the attack, airplane decreased in prototypicality. In fact, 41/2 months after the attack, airplane was no longer a prototypical vehicle. -->Another problem with the prototype approach is that we often do store specific information about individual examples of a category. An ideal model of semantic memory would therefore need to include a mechanism for storing this specific information, as well as prototypes -->The prototype theory clearly accounts for a number of important phenomena. Let's now examine a second approach to semantic memory, which emphasizes that your concept of a vehicle or an animal or a vegetable also includes information about some of the less obvious members of the category, rather than just the most prototypical member.

Schemas Throughout Psychology

The concept of schemas has had a long history in psychology. As discussed in Chapter 1, Jean Piaget's work in the 1920s investigated infants' cognitive skills, including schemas. -->Frederic Bartlett (1932) tested adults' memory for schemas --> Not popular during the behaviorist era --> Schema is now a standard term in contemporary cognitive psychology --> Important in social situations --> Bicultural individuals develop a different set of schemas for each of their two cultures. A young boy may see the world through U.S.-based schemas while at school, but he may use Mexican-based schemas when he returns to his home.

The Exemplar Approach and Semantic Memory

The exemplar approach argues that we first learn information about some specific examples of a concept; then we classify each new stimulus by deciding how closely it resembles all of those specific examples. --> Each of those examples stored in memory is called an exemplar. Emphasizes that your concept of ''dog'' would include information about numerous examples of dogs you have known. In contrast, the prototype approach would argue that your prototype of a dog would be an idealized representation of a dog, with average size for a dog and average other feature but not necessarily like any particular dog you've ever seen. --> Consider another example. Suppose that you are in Abnormal Psychology and just read four case studies in your textbook, and each case study described a depressed individual. You then read an article that describes a woman's psychological problems, but the article does not specify her disorder. You decide that she fits into the category ''depressed person'' because this description closely resembles the characteristics of those four earlier exemplars. Furthermore, this woman's problems do not resemble any exemplars in a set of case studies that you read last week, when you were learning about anxiety disorders.

Network Models and Semantic Memory

Think for a moment about the large number of associations you have to the word apple. How can we find an effective way to represent the different aspects of meaning for apple that are stored in memory? A number of theorists favor network models. These network models of semantic memory propose a netlike organization of concepts in memory, with numerous interconnections. -->The meaning of a particular concept, such as ''apple'' or ''psychology,'' depends on the other concepts to which it is connected. The network models typically represent each concept as a node, or one unit located within the network. When you see or hear the name of a concept, the node representing that concept is activated. The activation expands or spreads from that node to other connected nodes, a process called spreading activation. The classic network theory was developed by Allan Collins and Elizabeth Loftus (1975).We will consider two relatively recent theories, Anderson's ACT-R Theory and the parallel distributed processing approach.

The Prototype Approach and Semantic Memory Levels of Categorization Superordinate-Level Categories Basic-Level Categories Subordinate-Level Categories

We just examined three characteristics of prototypes that differentiate them from nonprototypes. The second major portion of prototype theory examines the way that our semantic categories are structured in terms of different levels of categorization. For example; Pet can be considered as: Animal > Dog > Huskey -->In other words, an object can be categorized at several different levels. Some category levels are called; Superordinate-level categories --> Higher-level or more general categories. ''Furniture,'' ''animal,'' and ''tool''. Basic-level categories --> Moderately specific. ''Chair,'' ''dog,'' and ''screwdriver'' are examples of basic-level categories. Subordinate-Level Categories --> lower-level or more specific categories. ''Desk chair,'' ''collie,'' and ''Phillips screwdriver''. Basic-level categories seem to have special status. More useful than either superordinate-level categories or subordinate-level categories. Let's examine how these basic-level categories seem to have special privileges, in contrast to the more general or the more specific category levels.