Cognotive Psychology Exam 2 – Flashcards
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The modal model revisited
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Some information in STM is encoded into LTM Information in LTM is retrieved into STM 1. Stimulus goes in sensory memory 2. If you pay attention, it goes in STM encoding: convert (information or an instruction) into a particular form. LTM is a place for storing information for an infinite period of time we need to sleep to consolidate our memory. Sleep takes trash out in our brain
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LTM capacity
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Landauer (1986): 10,000,000,000,000 (1013) (number of synapses) or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1020) (number of neural impulses) bits of information The size of a human memory equals to the sypanes on the cerebral cortex 10 ^13, so human can hold up to 10^13 distinct information 2. Or 10^20 buts of information, the estimated number of neutral impulses or electrical messages, transmitted within the brain durig a person's lifetime
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LTM duration
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Permastore: Bahrick's (1984) term for relatively permanent long-term memories. Virtually unlimited. The information can stay for a very long time
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Bahrick, Bahrick, & Wittlinger (1975) tested LTM duration
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tested 392 high school graduates for memory of names and portraits of classmates selected from yearbooks time since graduation varied from 2 wks to 57 yrs identification and matching of names and faces remained approximately 90% correct for at least 15 yrs Found that people are really good at identifying the faces aboout 50 years
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Memory for high-school Spanish
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.Barick's tested 733 adults who had taken or taking high school spanish and tested the forgeting curve. He foundthat the first 3 to 6 years pof taking spanish, participants recall declined. the next 3 years = flat line after 30 t0 35 years final decline. He explained that this happened because large portions of the original acquired information remain accessible for over 50 years in spite of the fact the informatiomn is not used or rehearsed= permasture state= a function of the level of original training
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Depth of processing
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The level to which information is processed after being introduced into the memory. The concept is based on the rejection of the idea that information is stored in discrete memory stores. It adopts the view that an item enters the information-processing system and undergoes an increasing amount of processing, thereby moving deeper into the system. postulated that the retention characteristics of information are determined by the depth of processing, with deeper levels being associated with more abstract coding and greater retention Abandons the idea of discrete storage systems and concentrates on the types of processes associated with different levels of retention
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Assumptions of the depth of processing approach Three distinct levels
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shallow/physical: consider a word's physical appearance (in capital letters) medium/phonemic: consider how a word sounds (rhymes with another word) deep/semantic: consider a word's meaning (means the same as another word) You will remeber what you attend to most. (what you pay attention and learn more.rention is related to the processing of information think of a demonstration
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Craik & Lockhart (1972) experiment (deep processing)
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People were more likely to recognize a word if they had processed it semantically (find the meaning) rather than physically Deep processing produces better recall (and recognition) than shallow processing (physical processing.
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Self-reference effect
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people recall more information when they relate that information to themselves in some meaningful way Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker (1977) Found recall was greates for self reference items and typicals level of proceccing. self- refrence was higher and physical was lower.
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Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker (1977)
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Participants responded to four types of questions Is this word in all capital letters? KIND vs. kind Does this word rhyme with mind? kind vs. kink Does this word mean the same as nice? kind vs. mean Does this word describe you? kind vs. mean
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The self-reference effect
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Applications when you really want to remember something, relate it to your experiences some negative consequences of relating things to yourself: advertisers should invite consumers to process the names/pictures of products by considering how they can use them learning about research by participating in the in-class
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Retrieval of long-term memories and interference
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LTM retrieval
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Once information is in LTM, one must retrieve it when necessary Example recall the names of the 50 states you must organize your search of LTM to accomplish this task
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Tip of the tongue (TOT)
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Successful retrieval is often helped by using partial information, such as length of the word or its initial letter, to limit the search of LTM TOT occurs when you know information is stored in LTM but are momentarily blocked from retrieving it. Researchers found that TOT occurs at least once and it gets worst as someone gets older
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Evidence for TOT studies by Brown
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Laboratory study: Brown & McNeill (1966) created TOT states by giving definitions of infrequent words and asking participants to recall the words Found: Giving first letter of the word and word length help word retrieval Naturalistic study: Brown (1991) had people carry diaries and write any time they experienced a TOT TOTs occur about once a week and increase with age most are triggered by the names of personal acquaintances people can guess the first letter about 50% of the time about half TOTs are resolved within 1 minute
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Context effects on retrieval
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Baddeley's (1975) "diving" experiment Encoding specificity: Recall is better if the retrieval is simmilar to the encoding text Cues used in encoding can also be used in retrieval Blocks in retrieval are more likely to occur when the two contexts do not match Baddeley's (1975) "diving experiment" Best recall occurred when encoding and retrieval occurred in the same location Context-dependent memory : refers to improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same. One particularly common example of context-dependence at work occurs when an individual has lost an item (e.g. lost car keys) in an unknown location. Typically, people try to systematically "retrace their steps" to determine all of the possible places where the item might be located. Based on the role that context plays in determining recall, it is not at all surprising that individuals often quite easily discover the lost item upon returning to the correct context.
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Context effects on retrieval continue
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State-dependent effect (mood-dependent effect): Mood dependence is the facilitation of memory when mood at retrieval is identical to the mood at encoding, or the process of memory Whatever your mood is is what you will recall. If you have happy mood, you will recall happy memory and sad mood, sad memory. Eich and Metcalfe's (1989) "mood" experiment Eich and Metcalfe's (1989) "mood" experiment Spacing effect (distributed practice effect) When a human encodes a memory, he or she not only records the visual and other sensory data, he also stores his mood and emotional states. A persons present mood thus will affect the memories that are most easily available to her, such that when she is in a good mood she recalls good memories (and vice versa). The associative nature of memory also means that one tends to store happy memories in a linked set. Different from mood-congruent memory, mood-dependent memory occurs where the congruence of current mood with the mood at the time of memory storage helps to recall the memory. Thus, the likelihood of remembering an event is higher when encoding and recall moods match up. However, it seems that only authentic moods have the power to produce these mood-dependent effects Keppel (1967) Ps studies list 8 times In one day (massed) 2x/day for 4 days (dist'd)
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Forgetting
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Two types of interference 1. Proactive: Material learned first interference with later material 2. Retroactive: Learning new material interferences with previously learned material
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Proactive interference as a function of number of prior lists
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Jenkins & Dallenbach (1924) Ss learned a list of nonsense syllables (e.g., TUV, BIJ, etc) Slept or stayed awake for 1 - 8 hours prior to test
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Amnesia
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is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma
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Two types of amnesia
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1 Anterograde amnesia: inability to remember events that occur after injury due to accident disease. Cannot form new memories. EX: H.M.—removal of bilateral hippocampus, could not learn new information (but could learn new procedures) 2 Retrograde amnesia: a loss of memory-access to events that occurred, or information that was learned, before an injury or the onset of a disease. Ex: P.Z., Korsakov patient Wrote autobiography 3 years before onset of disease Could not recall details of his life
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Amnesia
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retrograde = loss of the past anterograde = loss of the future
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Amnesia
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Oliver Sacks', "The lost mariner" Jimmie G.: 49 y/o chronic alcoholic with Korsakov's syndrome Thought it was 1945 (and he was 19) when it was 1975 (and he was 49) Would introduce himself to Dr. Sacks every time he saw him Had both antero- and retrograde amnesia Could not form new memories and could not remember many previously formed memories
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Divisions in long-term memory
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Some psychologists make a distinction between implicit and explicit memories Implicit memory: Made up of knowledge based on previous experience, such as skills that we perform automatically once we have mastered them Exists outside of conscious awareness Procedural memories Priming: occurs when recall is improved by earlier exposure to the same or similar stimuli Explicit memory Knowledge that consists of conscious recall of facts and events Two types of explicit memories 1. Semantic memories: is a more structured record of facts, meanings, concepts and knowledge about the external world that we have acquired. It refers to general factual knowledge, shared with others and independent of personal experience and of the spatial/temporal context in which it was acquired. Semantic memories may once have had a personal context, but now stand alone as simple knowledge. It therefore includes such things as types of food, capital cities, social customs, functions of objects, vocabulary, understanding of mathematics, etc. Much of semantic memory is abstract and relational and is associated with the meaning of verbal symbols. 2. Episodic memories: represents our memory of experiences and specific events in time in a serial form, from which we can reconstruct the actual events that took place at any given point in our lives. It is the memory of autobiographical events (times, places, associated emotions and other contextual knowledge) that can be explicitly stated. Individuals tend to see themselves as actors in these events, and the emotional charge and the entire context surrounding an event is usually part of the memory, not just the bare facts of the event itself.
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Divisions in LTM
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Some believe explicit memory is the same as declarative memory, which includes episodic and semantic Declarative memory: sometimes referred to as explicit memory) is one of two types of long-term human memory. Declarative memory refers to memories which can be consciously recalled such as facts and knowledge.[1] While declarative memory is similar to explicit memory, declarative memory is memory that a patient can state in words, explicit memory is the deliberate recall of information that the patient recognizes as a memory. Declarative memory's counterpart is known as non-declarative or procedural memory, which refers to unconscious memories such as skills (e.g. learning to ride a bicycle). Declarative memory can be divided into two categories: episodic memory, which stores specific personal experiences, and semantic memory, which stores factual information.[3] They also believe that implicit memory is the same as nondeclarative memory
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Divisions in LTM
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Evidence for semantic/episodic distinction Episodic memories are formed after a single exposure Semantic memories often require repeated exposure to information Amnesia patients usually have damage to episodic memories, but intact semantic memories (e.g., K. C.) Different brain regions (generalizations) Episodic: hippocampus, LH-PFC Semantic: medial temporal cortex (outer layers)
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Autobiographical memory and flashbulb memory
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Recollected events that belong to a person's past Mental time travel
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Autobiographical memory
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What events are remembered well? Significant events in a person life Highly emotional events Transition points Reminiscence bump: Participants over the age of 40 asked to recall events in their lives. Memory is highly for recent events and for events that occurred in adolescence and early adulthood (between 10 and 30 years at age) is highly for recent events that occured in adolescene and early adultdood between 10 and 30 years of age Participants over the age of 40 asked to recall events in their lives The reminiscence bump for people who emigrated at age 34 to 35 is shifted toward older ages, compared to the bump for people who emigrated between the ages of 20 to 24
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Flashbulb memories
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Memory for an event that was surpricing and emotionally arousing( and for circumstances surrounding the learning of that event) Memory for event that was surprising and emotionally arousing ( and for circumstances surrounding the learning of that event Some believe that flashbulb memories are complete, accurate, vivid, and immune to forgetting Examples JFK and MLK assassinations Space shuttle Challenger disaster Columbine shootings 9/11/01 Research Early studies were mixed in terms of whether memories for these events are actually better than for mundane events or if these memories are just more confidently recalled Most recent, controlled experiments find that people are more confident, but not more accurate, in their flashbulb memories than memories for ordinary events Talarico & Rubin (2003) 54 students recorded memory of first hearing about the terrorists attacks and of a recent everyday event one day after the attacks occurred (9/12/01) They were tested again 1, 6, or 32 weeks later Consistency for the flashbulb and everyday memories did not differ (both declined over time) Ratings of vividness and confidence in memory accuracy only declined for everyday memories Talarico amd Rubin found that consitency declines with time Details decline with time for both types; confidence remained high only in flashbulb memories
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Memory as reconstruction
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Bartlett (1932) was the first to distinguish between Reproductive memory: : Reproducing information word for word; like a tape recorder. Reconstructive memory: actively recreating past events and experience, based partly personal knowledge of the world (schema) every time we remember we add some details that might not been there before. Schema theory: all new information interacts with old information represented in a schema
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schemas
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are building blocks of cognition which are used to interpret sensory data, retrieve information from memory, organize action, and solve problems We have schema of how to interact with objects in the book experiement Bartlett's War of the Ghosts Bartlett's War of the Ghosts study Bartlett (1932) had Ss read a Native American story about two Indians on a seal hunting trip who encounter a supernatural war-party (The War of the Ghosts), then try to recall it Found that people systematically distorted the story when they recalled it, making it more consistent with their own schemas Examples: seal hunt was changed to a fishing trip; many references to the supernatural were omitted or re-interpreted
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Schema theory
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is sometimes called constructivist theory because rather than simply reproduce the information that is received the information is reconstructed information is added, subtracted, ignored, or transformed depending on how the schema is viewed and the relation of new information to the schema Believe that memory is constructuve atipical objects: things that are not there in the natural world
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Reconstructive retrieval:
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Schema-guided retrieval of episodic memories Details are often changed to match schemas More evidence: Brewer & Treyens (1981) Participants asked to wait in an office before moving to a lab for an experiment After 35 seconds, they were moved to another room and asked to recall what was in the office Results of Brewer & Treyens (1981) Everyone recalled typical office contents (desk & chair) Only 8 of 30 recalled the skull Few recalled the wine bottle or the coffee pot Only 1 recalled the picnic basket Some recalled items that had not been there at all: 9 remembered books Kitchen example
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False memory and eyewitness memory
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Roediger & McDermott (1995) found that people can be led to falsely recall and recognize words that were not presented in a list
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False memory
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Based on Roediger & mcDermott (1995) Fase memories are memories for things that never happened. Roediger & McDermott (1995) found that people can be led to falsely recall and recognize words that were not presented in a list Words like chair are called critical lures= words that were not represented but are thought to be presented Study related words= words that were related
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There are different types of false memories:
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1.Verbal (associative) false memories 2. Conjunction errors: A flase memory that involve recombing features from actually presented items. EX: recombing things you have seen 3. Confabulations Verbal false memories: When a list of semantically related words are perceived, a high associated of these words is often falsely remembered E.g., Roediger & McDermott's study Chair
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Confabulation
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Is a false narrative account of autographical event Usually when part of a word is falsely linked to a part of another word E.g., when presented with Blackmail and Jailbird, Blackbird is later recognized (Leding et al., 2007) Reinitz and colleagues have shown that new faces that are combinations of old faces are false recognized about 50% of the time Real world examples Piaget "remembered" an attempted kidnapping on him at age 2 (his nurse thwarted the attempt) The nurse actually made up the story and told it to Piaget's parents He formed a (vivid) memory of the event based on this information In a few cases of childhood abuse it has been concluded that the memories of abuse are false Lab examples Loftus has edited participants' childhood photos and led them to believe something happened that did not Ex.: shaking hands with Mickey Mouse as a child Other studies have led participants to believe they were lost in a shopping mall, in trouble at school, took a hot-air balloon ride, etc. based on provided information (e.g., false photographs) Wade et al. (2002): 50% created memories of this event
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Eyewitness memory
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Testimony from witnesses is often weighed heavily by jurors Loftus (1988) presented subjects a description of a robbery-murder, then a prosecution argument, then an argument for the defense Some subjects heard only circumstantial evidence Others heard from a clerk who claimed to identify the defendant Guilty verdicts of 18% and 72%, respectively How is the recall of an eyewitness affected by reconstructive retrieval processes? Even when witnesses are confident of the accuracy of their testimony, false recall can cause distortions Approximately 8,500 wrongful convictions in the U.S. alone, with as many as half caused by incorrect eyewitness testimony A study reviewed 65 cases of innocent people being convicted of a crime In 45% of these cases, eyewitness mistakes were responsible
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Eyewitness memory
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In 1985, Ronald Cotton (below right) was convicted of rape and burglary based on eyewitness ID of a victim, Jennifer Thompson In 1995, Cotton was cleared of all charges based on DNA evidence indicating Bobby Poole (below left) He served 10.5 years for a crime he did not commit Wording of questions (Loftus, 1973) Subjects watched a film and then were asked questions about it Some questions were about things that were or were not in the film Half of the subjects: "Did you see a broken headlight?" Other half: "Did you see the broken headlight?" Those with the "the" questions more likely to respond, "yes" than those asked the "a" questions Loftus and Palmer (1974) Subjects saw a video of a car accident and then were asked a series of questions Some subjects were asked, "About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" Others asked similar questions, but "smashed" was changed to "collided," bumped," "contacted," or "hit" The words affected judgments of velocity Loftus, Miller, & Burns (1978) Changed subjects' memory for traffic sign Half of the subjects saw slide depicting a car pass a stop sign and then hit a pedestrian Other half saw the same slides but with a yield sign They then answered questions, one of which mentioned a stop or yield sign Four conditions Saw stop sign, stop sign in question Saw stop sign, yield sign in question Saw yield sign, stop sign in question Saw yield sign, yield sign in question Subjects then chose which of the following slides appeared in the slide show 75% of those in the consistent conditions responded accurately 14% in the inconsistent conditions were correct
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Causes of false testimony
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1. Selective encoding due to perceptual factors (poor visibility, rapid and unexpected events) 2. Peripheral details, but not central features, are lost are under emotional duress 3. Misinformation effect (and source monitoring errors) Memory implantation Suggestions Witnesses should be interviewed individually as quickly as possible after the incident Interviewers need to not make any suggestions or lead the witness to remember something Lineups should include lures similar to target (and just lures) Sequential lineups (rather than simultaneous lineups) reduce false recognition Jurors and judges need to be aware of the fallibility of memory
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Conclusions
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Once information is stored in LTM, it must be retrieved to be useful Depth of processing affects storage in LTM TOT and proactive and retroactive interference affect the retrieval of LTMs There are different types of LTMs and amnesiacs tend to have impairment in specific types Because memory is reconstructive, it is fallable People misremember events even when they are confident in their recollection
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chapter 7 concepts and categorization
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Mental representations categories are called concepts and categorization is the process used to assign indivisual examples to concepts.
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Organizing knowledge
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semantic memory models were developed because phychologist and computer scientists were interested in artificial intelligence called commonsense knowledge. Implicit knowledge: information you know but take for granted Ex: directions on a shampoo tottle (wet hair, apply shampoo, and rise repeat. Explicit Knowledge of language and concepts. Knowing something because you extensively studied it. Lexions: mental dictionaries
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Introduction
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Knowledge is semantic memory Psychologists have focused on how knowledge is organized knowledge about concepts
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category
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is a class of objects that seem to have something that belong together "Pointers to knowledge Categories provide a wealth of general information about an item Allow us to identify the special characteristics of a particular item Knowing that something is in a category provides a great deal of information about it. Categories aid in understanding individual cases not previously encountered Categories are something that exist objectively in the world and concepts are described as mental representations of categories.
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concept:
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a mental representation of a category. Is in the mind. different people have different concepts about certain circumstances. Mental representation of a category. An idea that includes all that is characteristically associated with it. Is a mental representation of some object, event, or pattern that has stored in it much of the knowledge typically through relevant to that object, event or pattern Concepts help us 1. Establish order in our knowledge base 2. To categorize 3. To act accordingly Model of semantic memory (knowledge) describe the ways in which representations of different concpets are interrralated concept is represented as the abstraction of characteristic features but there is no assumption that features are necessary or sufficient
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Demonstration
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classify the following objects into one of the two following categories Mamma(dog) Bird Fish
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Two general views of concepts
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1. Abstraction views: Concepts represent the common properties of the variable instances of a category Concepts are abstractions of known instances 2. Non-abstraction (exemplar) views: concepts are a collection of particular category instances Concepts consist of known instances
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Three theories of concepts
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1. Classical view 2. The prototype view 3. Exemplar view Abstraction views The classical (definition) view: The prototype view Non-abstraction view The exemplar view
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The classical (definitional) view
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knowledge consists of the properties that are necessary and sufficient for category membership. necessary: Each example must have the property in order to be a member of the category. Sufficient: Anything with each sufficient property must be a member of the category. UNMARRIED is a necessary property of BACHELOR sufficient: MARRIED and MALE are the sufficient properties of HUSBAND If something has the necessary and sufficient properties of a category, then it is a member of the category If it does not have these properties, then it is not a member
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Criticisms of the classical view
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Rosch (1973) showed that category membership is not always clear-cut. (cannot make restrictions) some instances are better than others ROBIN and PENGUIN must both have necessary and sufficient properties of BIRD but ROBIN is more quickly judged a BIRD than is PENGUIN (typicality) Objects are all possible "chairs" Some are better members of the category than others we do not know what are the necessary and sufficient properties of a concept? People cannot give explicit definitions of concepts (Wittgenstein, 1953
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Demonstration: Necessary and sufficient
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To be a bachelor is necessary to be an unmarried male of certain age
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The prototype view
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An abstraction view: explains a list of things. Prototype theory is probabilistic; classical theory is not A prototype is the best possible representation of a category, consisting of those features most commonly occurring in instances of the category if it is sufficiently similar to the prototype, it is judged as an instance of the category if it not sufficiently similar to the prototype, then it is rejected as an instance of the category Prototype view explains why ROBIN is more quickly judged a BIRD than PENGUIN since ROBINS have more similarity to the prototypical BIRD than PENGUINS why it takes more time to judge BAT as not a BIRD than RAT since BATS have more similarity to the prototypical BIRD than RATS Family resemblance: How similar the members of a category are to each other Things in a category resemble one another in a number of ways Strong positive relationship between prototypical and family resemblance
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Demonstration: Typicality
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The prototype view/ Three levels of categories
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1. basic level: the psychologically fundamental level of abstraction (e.g naming DOG and APPLE) concepts at this level share a larger quantity of information and the basic level is most informative. Group together similar objects, events, people, ideas, and so on. Is the best compromise. 2. superordinate level: a level above the basic level (e.g Mammal and fruit) Giving name to the things at basic level, contain members that are dissimilar a level above the basic level (e.g MAMMAL and Fruit) Superordinate node: name of category of which the thing corresponding to the subordinate node is a member. EX: a node for cat have the superordinate node and animal and several subordinate nodes such as persian, tabby, calico etc.. 3. subordinate level: a level below the basic level (Poodle) Mammal (superordinate level) Dog Cat Poodle Collie Siamese Persian
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Levels of categorization: what are these things?
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Rosch (1975): participants judged objects on a scale of 1 (good example of a category) to 7 (poor example)
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The prototype view continue
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Rosch, Mervis and subsequent research has shown that the basic level is the 1. most specific level to be labeled with a single word 2. fastest label to verify as true of a pictured object 3. label most often generated to a picture 4. label most often used by parents to label an object for their children 5. level at which novel categories are most readily learned
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Prototype view
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rejects the existence of necessary and sufficient features lists (except for limited number of concepts such as mathematical ones. Conceptual researchers belive in the existence of mental prototypes, idealized representations of some class of objects or events; Family resemblance strcuture of concepts: a structure in which each member has a number of features, sharing different features with different members. the more features a member processses the more typical it is. EX: family resemblance The protype View of concepts explains typically effects by reference to familyy resemblance. Rosh and Mervis presented participants with terms (chair, car, orange) from six different superordinate categories (such as funiture, vehicle, fruit, clothing) A prototype is an abstraction that includes all the characteristic features of a category. It may not be an actual instance of the category. They are mental summaries or averages of all the instances. concepts have one or more core representations based on a family resemblance structure, but have no rigid boundaries. Rosch and her colleagues discovered that a concept has higher-level (superiordinate) and lower- level (subordinate) concepts
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The prototype view does a very good job at
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The prototype view does a very good job at 1. explaining why certain members of a category are seen as more typical than others 2. why people have hard time providing strict definitions of their concepts: strict definitions do not exist 3. Why some classifications are especially easy to make and other are unclear. The prototype view explains that tomatoes share features with both vegetables (leading to classification as vegetable) and fruits (leading to classification as fruit)
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Criticisms of the prototype theory/ Problems with prototype view
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the prototype theory suggests that categories have fuzzy boundaries tomatoes are considered fruit even though they may have more similarity with vegetables 1. Fails to capture people's knowledge about the limits of conceptual boundaries. The classical view sets constraints or boundaries around which things can and can't belong to a category. Rosch and colleagues argued that constrints around different categories come from the enviornment itself. 2. Typicality Ratings: Barsalou and Roth showed that the typicality of an instance in the context of birds you see in the neighbordhood, It is atypical of birds you see in a barnyard. These findings constrast with the idea that a member of a category has a certain level of typicality:P typicality vaires with the context in which the concept is being considered. Concepts are some sort of mental abstraction or summary. In other words, individual instances are not specifically stored or mentally represented but instead are averaged into some sort of composite representation
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The exemplar view/ Which are cups?
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A non-abstraction view Denies the existence of abstract representations Claims knowledge is specific past experience Evidence for the exemplar view Brooks had subjects classify objects as cups and measured response time On the first occasion, one of the cups was a highly distinctive, atypical one—it took a long time to classify On a subsequent occasion, the same cup was presented again and it was now classified as rapidly as other typical cups that had not been seen before The category membership of the object was already known—it matched an exemplar represented in memory It is difficult to decide on some items However, once a decision is made it can be easily made a second time
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The exemplar view
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Similar to prototype view Representing a category is not defining it Different: representation is not abstract Descriptions of specific examples The more similar a specific exemplar is to a known category member, the faster it will be categorized Each exemplar gets categorized by it similarity to previously categorized items. It then joins the category representation and influences subsequent categorization Explains typicality effect Easily takes into account atypical cases Easily deals with variable categories Each exemplar gets categorized by it similarity to previously categorized items. It then joins the category representation and influences subsequent categorization
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The Exemplar view of concepts and categorization
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Examplar view of concepts: asserts that concepts include representations of at least some actual individual instances. Assumes that people categorise view instances by comparing them to representations of previously stored instances called exemplars: Examplars: store representations of actual instances. Explains people's in ability to state necessary and defining features: none to be stated. explains why people may have difficulty categorizing unclear, atypical instances. It is easy to find a typical instances in our mind because they are relatively fast because they exist in real life. Atypical instances takes longer to process because they are not similar with stored exemplars.
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Problem with exemplar view
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1. Is unconstrained ( Fails to specify which instances will be stored as exemplars and which will not) 2. does not explain how different exemplars are called to mind at the time of categorization Arthur Reber gave participants strings of letters to learn. Reber concluded that when complex underlying structures exist ( such as grammar) people are better off memorizing exemplars than trying to figure out what the structures is.
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Nonanalytic concept formation aka implicit learning
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is also known as explicit learning which requires to pay attention to individual exemplars, stored information and representation of them in memory. Books gave participants a paired-associats learning taks= learning to associate hieroglyphic symbols strings with English words. he found that participants sometimes explicitly test specific hypotheses when forming concepts, sometimes they form prototypes and sometimes they memorize exemplars. this happened because some simple laboratory taks seem to lead participants to adopt an analytical, hypotheis-testing framework
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Learning new concepts
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So far we've discussed how people use their existing concepts to make categorizations If objects do not fit into our existing representations of categories, new concepts must be created Views of concepts must attempt to explain how new concepts are formed
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Five factors that encourage people to store information about individual exemplars
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1. Task requirements to learn information that distinguishes among individual instances Ex: flashcards 2. Instances occur repeadly to allow someone to know certain instances very well 3. some stimuli lend themsleves to hypothesis testing better than others do.
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Classical (definitional) view
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Holds that the featured represented are individually necessary and collectively sufficient. each example must have a feature to be regarded as member of concept Learning a new concept is trying in figure out a rule to which all category members must conform
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Implications of classical view of concepts
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1. concepts mentally represnts lists of features ( concepts are not represenations of specific examples but rather abstractions conating information about properties and characteristics that all examples must have) 2. Assumes that membership in a catergory is clear cut ( something as all of the necessary features or lacks of the features 3. It implies that all members within a category are created equal (there is no such thing as a better or worse object or triangle. Rosch found that people judged different members of a category as varying in goodness (something is better than the other). The problem with this is that the classical view holds that membership in a category is all or none. Most people cannot generate lists of features that are individually necessary and collectively sufficient to specific membership in a category
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Exemplar view
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Learning a new concept is creating a collection of known category members. Neurobiology of category learning. Rule-based category involves the frontal lobes and basal ganglia Prototype--based category learning involves the visual cortex. Learning a new concept is creating a prototype, done by averaging the features of known instances of a category
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Neurobiology of category learning
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Rule-based category learning involves the visual cortex Prototype-based category learning involves frontal lobes This suggests that there are two distinct processes by which objects can be classified
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Principle of cognitive economy
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The amount of information stored in memory is minimized by reducing redundancy. EX; all dogs do something. For something to be dog, it has to have all properties of a dog the principle that properties and facts are stored with the highest and most general node possible. Carol conrad contraed the cognitive economy principle
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Semantic memory
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Semantic memory models
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Many models attempt to explain how we organize our knowledge Most focus on how we retrieve information to answer simple questions (e.g., is a dog a mammal?) We will discuss two 1. Hierarchical network model: from the first level to second level we see increase in reaction time. Typicality effect: more typical members of a category are more easily classied Problems with instrasitivity is a property of binary relations that are not transitive relatio 2. Spreading activation model length of each link represents semantic relatedness when a concepts is processed, activation spreads out along paths. Strength of activation decreases as distances increases Does not have a hierarchy
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Hierarchical network model
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Costs and benefits of hierarchical organization benefits: Economical way to store information since at reducces redundancy costs: retrieval of some facts require multiple inferences does a canary have skin? a canary is a bird and birds are animals and animals have skin
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Hierarchical network model
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Problems with hierarchical network model Violations to the model's predictions "A chimpanzee is a primate" takes longer than "A chimpanzee is an animal" "Scotch is a liquor" takes longer than "Scotch is a drink" Problems with hierarchical network model Typicality effect: "A robin is a bird" faster than "A penguin is a bird" "A dog is a mammal" faster than "A bat is a mammal" Problems with hierarchical network model Transitivity: If A is a B and B is a C, then A is a C Hampton showed that some categories violate this assumption A car seat is a type of chair A chair is a type of furniture But a car seat is not a type of furniture Some categories do not seem to have a hierarchical structure
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Hierarchical network model
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Collins & Quillian's (1969) study Subjects responded true/false to a series of sentences A robin is a robin (superset—isa, 0 levels) A robin is a bird (superset, 1 level) A robin is an animal (superset, 2 levels) A robin is blue (property—has, can, is; 0 levels) A robin can fly (property, 1 level) A robin has skin (property, 2 levels)
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Collins & Quillian's (1969) results/ Hierarchical network model
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Collins & Quillian's (1969) results
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Collins and Quillian
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Performed a study on semantic memory. They tested the idea that semantic memory is analogous to a network of connected ideas. The connected ideas are connected by nodes, which represents words or concepts. Each node is connected to another node by means of pointers and links that go from one node to another. Collins and Quillian also tested the principle of cognitive economy. They reasoned that if semantic memory is analogous to a network of nodes and pointers and if semantic memory honors the cognitive economy principle, then the closer a fact or proerty is stored to a particular node, the less time it should take to verify the fact and property. They predicted that if a person's knowledge of Bernese mountain dogs is organiized along the lines, he or she should be able to verify the sentecnes "A bernese mountain dog has live poung. They found that it took people less time to respond to sentences to first sentences than to second. This is called hierarchical semantic network model of semantic memory because resaerchers thought the nodes were organized in hierarchies. Most nodes in the netwrok have superordinate and subordinate nodes
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Problem with hierachical network
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Propeties can move It failed to explain other consistent findings such as typicality effect Ribs et al. (1973( found that responses to sentences such as "A robin is a bird were faster than responses to "A turkey is a bird" Typical concepts are responded to more quickly than atypical one. The hierarchical network model did not predict typicality effects. It predicted that all instances of a concept should be processed similarly.
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Semantic network
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The collection of nodes associated with all the words and concepts one knows about
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Meyer and Scvaneveldt study of semantic network
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They reasoned that if related words are stored close to one another and are connected in a semantic networks, then whenever one node is activated or energized, energy spreads to the related nodes. They based this on lexial decision taks
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Lexial decision tasks
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Participants see a series of letter strings and are asked to decide, as quickly as possible if the letter strings form real words. They found that spreading activation
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Spreading activation model
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Spreading activation: is that idea that excitation spreads network. Semantic memory is a netowrk, with nodes in the network corresponding to concepts Proposed by Collins & Loftus (1975) Revised version of Collins & Quillian (1969) Removed hierarchical structure Semantic network model that emphasizes relationships between concepts Support for spreading activation model Predicts typicality effects Predicts semantic priming Lexical decision task Words were recognized faster if preceded by a related word than an unrelated word BUTTER recognized faster if preceded by BREAD than NURSE Also explains verbal false memories (DRM effect) Criticisms of spreading activation model Model assumes that the semantic network is flexible This makes it difficult to test It does not make clear predictions It has many assumptions to explain data but is so broad it is not really falsifiable
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Adaptive Control of thought (ACT) model of memory
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Is a network theory of memory. It has given rise to several computer cognitive processing of different taks and ditinsguish between three kinds of meory system 1. Working memory 2. Declarative memory ( stores information in networks that contain nodes) 3. Prodecual memory Act model allow both for activation of any node and for spreading activation of connected nodes working memory is part of declarative memory that is very highly activated at any particular moment.
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Procedural memory
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Represents information in production rules. The production rules specify a goal to achieve one or more conditions that must be true for the rule to apply, and one or more actions that result from applying the rule.It becomes activated when the nodes in declarative memory that correpond to the conditions of the relevant production rules are activated. for this ACT model decribed activation based models of human cognition J.R Anderson created the theory of cognitive architecture: a theory of how human cognition actually operates in pratice. He proposed a system that includes both memory storage and particular processing structures.
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Connectionst models
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Library metaphor: piece of information stored in long-term memory as a particular item stored in a particular location, like a book in the library. What is stored in memory is a set of changes in the instructions neurons send to each other, affecting what pattern of activity can be contructed from given input. Connection means different pieces or units of information are connected. training takes place in epochs epochs: each epochs follows the procedure: an input pattern is presented, and an output pattern of activation is generated, then comapred with a correct, target pattern of activation.
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Semantic priming
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The idea of spreaing activation and the experimental innovations designed to test models of semantic memory have all contributed to our understanding of the principles of which knowledge is tored and retrieved.
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Conclusions
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Knowledge is semantic memory There are several models of how we learn and store knowledge about concepts and how this knowledge enables categorization There are also several models of how we retrieve information from semantic memory to answer simple questions All models have some support Each model explains how some concepts are stored or how some knowledge is retrieved
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Shemata/ scripys view of concepts
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shares features with botn the prototype view (in that both schemata and prototypes store information that is abstratced across instances 0 and exemplar view ( both schemata view shares some of problems facing the prototype and exemplar views.
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Nominal kind concepts
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include concepts that have clear defintions. Such as bachelor or odd number may inclde information about necessar and sufficient features, beacause these things exist as part of the concept definitions. EX: goat, water, gold include information about definitional or essential strcuture family resemblance structure and can be equally well explained within a knowledge-based approach.
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natural-kind concepys
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such as gold or tiger are of thing naturally occuring in some envionment
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Artifact concepts
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Things constructed to sefve some function or accomplish some task Higlight information about the objects purpose or function and may be adequately described only within the knowledge-based approach. EX RV, Pencil, mirror
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chapter 8
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...
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Mental imagery
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imaging the perception of some objects in the absence of the actual object ( imaging something when is not there). Seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, or smelling something. We will focus on visuospatial imagery Short history of mental imagery research Behaviorists had no interest in anything "mental" Leading up to "Cognitive Revolution" research on mental imagery began to emerge Have received the most attention within cognitive psychology.
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Visual imagery:
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Representation of visual objects that include information about their appearance such as color, form etc... seeing objects that is not currently present in the environment Visual imagery include 1. Method of loci 2. Interacting images 3. the Pegword method
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Dual-coding hypothesis
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Explains the working of various mnemonics. two distinct coding systems for representing information to be stored. 1. Verbal: contains information about an item's abstract, linguistic meaning 2. Imagery: mental pictures of some sort that represent what the item looks like. Items to remember can be coded by either verbal labels or visual images and in some cases both. Pictures and concrete words give rise to verbal labels and visual images; have mental representation Paivio study: Participants learned one of four lists of noun pairs. He found that participant spontaneously formed visual images of the nouns.Visual imagery increases as a function of concreteness. This is why pictures are remembered better than words. ere t Mental anchor: a place where the representation of the response can be attached
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The relational-organizational hypothesis
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Imagery improved memory because 1. Images are necessarily richer than verbal labels 2. produces more associations between the items to be recalled. (method of loci and interacting of images).
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Spatial imagery:
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Representations of spatial layouts that include information about the location of objects in space in relation to each and to the person. Location of objects relative to space, relative to you
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Method of loci
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Method of loci= forming on image between two words in a pair or between a word and a location typically requires that the person create a number of links or hooks between the information to be remembered and other information. The more retrieval cues a piece of information in memory has, the greater are the chance of recalling it. Associating items to be learned with a series of physical locations Visualize a series of places that you know well, arranged in a specific sequence Make up an image to represent each item you want to remember Associate the items, one by one, with the corresponding location in memory percentage of words recalled in the correct order as a function of condition and delay Baltes (1987) showed age differences in effectiveness of using method of loci Brower (1970) experiment: Participants were divided into three groups each had different instructions for a paired associates learning task 1. One group was told to do the overt rote repetition rehearse aloud. 2. another group was told to construct two images that did not interact and separated in imaginal space. 3. another group construct an interactive scene of two words in pair. He found that all participants recognized about 55% of the previously seen words. Images does not help memory but rather the way in which imagery is used. Interacting images create more links between target information and other information making the target information easier to retrieve
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Empirical investigation of imagery
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Brooks experiment: Participants were asked to imagine a letter F and then move it clockwise mentally from one corner to another at extreme top or extreme bottom of the letter. Brooks found that participants took almost 2.5 time longer when they responded by pointing than when they responded verbally. Hou are faster to, when participants were asked to remember a sentence, they were faster at responding when they pointed than when they responded verbally. This happened because of symbolic distance effect= you are faster to answer the question which is bigger "whale or cocroach" than the question hog or cat. You will answer the first question faster
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Arguments against mental imagery Reed (1974)
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Demand characteristics= the researcher knows what the participants wants. They make participants act accordingly. Example we discussed earlier 1. Pylyshyn (1981): Most evidence for visual imagery may occur because of demand characteristics 2. Could not replicate Kosslyn et al. (1978) 3. Chambers and Reisberg (1985): participants cannot reinterpret ambiguous images. Gave people a picture of a duke. Necker cube, reversible duck/rabbi
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Arguments against mental imagery
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Mental imagery is epiphenomenon: 1. A mental experience that does not have a functional role in information processing 2. Mental imagery is not a perceptual experience, but this experience occurs alongside information processing Pylyshyn (1973): Mental representations are all propositional and not pictorial. EX: cat is under the table May "feel" like image, but all knowledge is stored in language-like propositions (epiphenomenal) Ex; Propositional representation 1. Spatial representation 2. depictive representation
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2 Evidence for mental imagery
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Tolman (1948) had the tendency to choose path No.6, which ran to where the entrance to te food box had been. Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men" Had rats learn the location of food in a maze Then put them in a different maze where the previously correct path is blocked Tried to determine if rats would chose the next closest arm or the arm that led to the previous location of the food Rats learned not only the original roundabout route but also the spatial location of the food Findings imagery work.
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Kosslyn, Ball, & Reiser (1978)
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Method Had subjects memorize locations of landmarks on a fictional map Asked them to imagine "looking" at a particular landmark Once ready, asked them to move a "pointer" to another specified location, then stop timer Ex: memorizing campus. Findings The mental image preserves original map distances The mental image doesn't just describe, but depicts the map
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Finke, Pinker, & Farah (1989)
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"what" pathway Found that mental images could be reinterpreted Argued against Chambers and Reisberg (1985) Had participants superimpose familiar images, report outcome Most participants were successful Argued that visual and spatial imagery are different Reported on patient, LH, with right temporal-occipital and inferior frontal damage LH could not recognize simple objects like pens and rings but could reproduce them very well LH showed impairment on some imagery tasks but not on others (impairment on visual but not spatial imagery tasks)
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Cognitive neuroscience evidence
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Category-specific neurons response time slower for both fMRI studies show both visual perception and visual imagery activate visual cortex (LeBihan et al., 1993) TMS studies show that stimulation applied to visual areas of the brain interferes with both visual perception and visual imagery Kosslyn et al. (1999) TMS to visual area of brain during perception and imagery task Brain activity in visual area of brain plays a causal role for both perception and imagery Conclusions Imagery and vision depend on the same brain regions Strong evidence that visual imagery is "visual" and not propositional
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category-specific neurons
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Neurons in the medial temporal lobe respond to a baseball but not a face (whether seen or imagined) EX: The same neuro woulf non-neurons that are category specific respond only to certain stimuli
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Manipulation of mental images
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People can create and transform mental images
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Mental rotation
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A type of imagery task in which subjects are asked to form an image of a stimulus and then to imagine how it would look as it rotates around a horizontal or vertical axis (or both) To decide if two figures are of the same objects, one of the figures can be mentally rotated
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Shepard & Metzler (1971)
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Presented subjects with three-dimensional objects Asked them to decide if a second object was the same (can be rotated to be identical) or different Performance was good (above 96%) Time taken to recognize some objects was linearly related to the degree of rotation necessary to create identical images. People mentally rotate objects at constant speed. There is a linear relationship between the object rotated They found that the time it took participants to decide if the two drawings depicted the object or a mirror image reversal was directly proportional to the angle of rotation between the drawings Suggests that mental rotation of a visual image operates under similar properties of rotations of actual objects. Concluded that participants performed the task by mental rotation of the drawing The time it took participants to come to a decision was the same for rotations in the picture and depth
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Cooper (1975)
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Presented subjects with two-dimensional shapes of varying complexity (number of sides) Had subjects learn the shape and then decide if new shape could be rotated along the picture plane to be identical to the learned shape Found that the time in recognize a "same shape" was linearly related to the degree of rotation necessary to become identical. No effect of shape complexity. Suggests mental rotation occurs at a constant rate and is independent of object complexity In a different task, she gave participants a polygons. She found that the reaction times one increased linearly with the angle of rotation and that the rate of rotation was the same for all the polygons. Mental rotations, like physical rotations are continuous in nature
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scanning images
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People can construct and transform their visual images. Images contain visual information and the kinds of transformations performed on them seem to correspond to similar transformations on pictures. Stephen Kosslyn investigated the spatial properties of images. participants formed a visual image and then caned it, moving from one location to another in their image. Found that it took people to say whether the part they were looking for was on the drawing. This happened because visual image found presented many of the spatial characteristics of the drawings such that parts of the drawings that are separated in space are also separated in the images. Reaction time increased because of the number of images that had to be scanned. The reaction times to scan between objects were correlated with the distance between objects. Imaginal scanning: The idea that the time people take to scan reveals something about the ways images represent spatial properties such as location and distance. People's maps are systematically distored because people use heuristics or rules of thumb, in orienting and anchoring oddly shaped units such as continents or states visual relations slowed down performance relative to either control problems or visuospatial problems
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Other mental rotation studies/ Carpenter & Eisenberg (1978)
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Had a congenially blind person haptically learn an object Then presented either the same object rotated by various degrees or a different object Found same pattern as Shepard and metzler: They found that the time it took participants to decide if the two drawings depicted the object or a mirror image reversal was directly proportional to the angle of rotation between the drawings Suggests that visual abilities are not a prerequisite for mental rotation More evidence that visual and spatial imagery are different processes Parsons (1987) Used drawings of hands and feet in different orientations and had subjects make left/right judgments Showed that performance was good (98%) and time to make decision increased with degree of rotation Just, Carpenter, Mcguire, Diwadkar, & McMains (2001) fMRI study in which Ss rotated a learned three-dimensional image (a clock) Found parietal activation similar to rotation tasks of a visually present object but less occipital activation (mental rotation is more of a spatial than a visual task)
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Mental animation
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The process of inferring the movement of different parts of a machine, are examples of complex visual-spatial inference If the handle is turned as shown, in which direction will the box move: A or B? Hegarty's studies People do not mentally animate the motion of all components of a mechanical system in parallel They decomposed the system into components and infer the motion of component one by one following the causal chain event
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The nature of mental imagery
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principles of visual images= describe the fundamental nature and properties of visual images 5 principles of visual images 1. Implicit encoding 2.perceptual equivalence 3. Spatial equivalence 4. Transformation equivalence 5. Structural equivalence
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Implicit encoding
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Mental imagery is instrumental in retrieving information about the physical properties of objects or relationships that was not explicitly encoded at any previous time. Images are places from which some information can be obtained, even if that information was never intentionally stored. This demonstrates that the kitchen cabinet was implicitly encoded= it was stored unintentionally along with other information that allows you do construct a visual image of your kitchen
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Perceptual Equivalence
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Similarities between the construction of visual images and the perception of real objects and events. Perky had participants image that they were looking at an object (such as tomatoes) while standing at a blank screen. Then they were distracted. Perky found that many of the participants were unable to distinguish between their own images and the faint pictures.
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Spatial Equivalence
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way that spatial informatin such as location, distance, and size is represented in visual imagery. Kosslyn found that the amount of time it takes people to scan from one element of a visual image t another corresponds to the distance between the elements in a physical representation
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Transformational Equivalence
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The way that images are mentally transformed. EX: mental rotation mental rotation words in the same way physical rotation does. It is continuous with rotating objects moving through intermediate orientations on their way to their final orientation.
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Structural Equivalence
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The ways that images are organized and assembled. The structure of mental images corresponds to that of actual perceived object. The larger the object, the more time it takes to throw it and the harder it will be. The greater the complexity of the conceived structure of the object, the larger it takes to assemble an image of it.
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Mental imagery as a mnemonic
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mnemonic= make you remember stuff Mnemonics are strategies that improve memory They are techniques used to help people remember certain information. Not all mnemonic techniques involve visual imagery.
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Paivio's dual coding theory
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There are separate (functionally and structurally) representational systems for verbal and nonverbal (visual/spatial) information Assumes that imagery exists and it functions to aid in cognition Gave subjects four lists of noun pairs to learn Concrete-concrete (chair-book) Concrete-abstract (chair-freedom) Abstract-concrete (freedom-chair) Abstract-abstract (freedom-truth) Then gave half of the pair with a blank (paired-associate task) He found that subjects accurately filled in the blank more often with concrete than abstract nouns
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Pegword method
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Like the method of loci, involves picturing to-be-remembered items with a set of already known cues Cues are not locations but a rhyme One is a sun Six is sticks Two is a shoe Seven is heaven Three is a tree Eight is a gate Four is a door Nine is wine Five is a hive Ten is a hen Imagine first item on the sun, second in a shoe, etc. Krinsky and Krinsky (1994) showed that pegword training helped 5th graders on immediate but not delayed tests
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Measuring visual-spatial ability
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There are several different ways to measure visual-spatial abilities Each test may actual measure a different aspect of visual and/or spatial imagery Most researchers believe there are multiple, separate abilities
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Paper folding test
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Ps imagine what a paper that has been folding and had a hole punched through it would look like when it is unfolded
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Vandenburg Mental Rotation Test
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Based on Shepard and Metzler's mental rotation study Ps asked which two alternatives can be rotated to be identical to a test item
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Spatial Orientation Test
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Ps are shown an array of objects They imagine they are at one object facing another object and they are asked to indicate the direction of a third object
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Measuring visual-spatial ability
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Performance on most of these (and other) measures are correlated Some people are good at all of them; others are not However, Hegarty and Waller (2004) showed that perspective taking and mental rotation are separate abilities Additional factor analyses have suggested that there are multiple, separate spatial abilities
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Critiques of mental images research and theory
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Experiments give enough hints, either explicitly or implicitly to perform by relying in their belief and knowledge rather than relying strictly on visual imagery
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Cognitively penetrable
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Tasks that are affected by people's beliefs and expectations.
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Demand characteristics
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The instructions, the tasks themselves or something about the situation cues that teaches the person how to behave EX: participants behave in a way that please the experimenter
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Experimenter expectancy effects
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Influenced at least some of the imagery investigations. Tells participants to do something and they follow Introns-Peterson performed an experiment in which they told participants what to do. they found that participants behaved like the experimenter wanted them to do.
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The picture Metaphor
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Pylyshyn said pictures and images differ in several ways 1. You can physically look at a picture without first knowing what it's a picture of. You cannot look at an image unless you know what it is. 2. Pictures and images are disruptable in different ways. You can cut a photograph in half. Images are organized more meaningfully and when they fade, only the meaningful parts disappear. 3. Images seem to be more easily distorted by the viewer interpretatins than are pictures or photographs. People make more error when they try to reproduce their images of familiar objects
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Propositional theory:
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Reject the idea that images serve as distinct mental code for representing information. Propositions are means of specifying relationships between different concepts. Propositions can be linked in networks, with two closely related ideas joined by sharing a number of propositions. Pylyshyn argued that all information in mentally represented and stored by propositions. Kossyln found that when people did not use imagery, they were faster to verify that cats had Propositional theories predict that the higher the associaton value, the more propositions relating the two items and thus the faster the verification time
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Psychological findings
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Cerebral blood flow is thought a fairly precise measure of brain activity in a particular region. They found that each person tasted showed massive activation in the part of the brain important for visual processing of information (occipal lobe) during the imagery task when participants imaged a face, the fusi form face area of the brain was activated. this is also the area that is activated when subjects view photographs of faces. Fusiform face area is in the occipital-temporal areas. When they formed a mental image of a place, the parobippocampal place area of the brain located in the venthromedial area was activated Tacit knowledge account of the electrophysiological and blood flow data include 1. That subjects know what parts of their brains are normally active during vision 2. That subjects can voluntarily alter their brain electrical activity or modulate or increase regional blood flow to specific areas of the brains.
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Spatila cognition
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How people represent and navigate in and through space. How we acquire, store, and use mental representations of spatial entities to get from point A to point B. EX: cognitive map= a mental depiction some part of our enviornment presumably showing major landmarks and spatial relationships among them. EX: Having the campus map cognitive maps are mental constructs people use to navigate spatially through an environment.
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Space around the body
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refers to the area immediately around you. The room you are in or the region in which you can easily perceive and act on objects. People localize objects in 3 axes that are extensions of the body 1. front-back axis 2. up-down axis 3. left-right axis
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Space of navigation
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refers to larger space-one we walk through, explore, nad travel to and through
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Cogntive collages
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are subjects to systematic errors and distortions. Drew-Dara results showed that participants were likelt to make neater ,aps in cutout task
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Spatial updating
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The idea that as organisms move through space,they must continually revise their mental representation of where things in the environment are with respect to their current location Navigation consists of two major components 1. Locomotion (moving the body over terrain) 2. way finding ( planning and making decisions about where to go and how to get there
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Conclusions
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Considerable evidence that imagery exists Mental images preserve features of physical images Visual and spatial imagery are separate processes Mental images are manipulated like physical objects except animated sequentially rather than simultaneously There are multiple ways to measure spatial abilities; each may measure a slightly different aspect of spatial abilities
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chapter 9
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Language is a collection of sounds and symbols and rules for combining these, which can be used to create an infinite variety of messages. This last portion is what makes human beings different from other living being Language: the pieces or aspects that go into the elaborated. Rule governed, creative communication systems we recognize as different human language. Some language processes are bottom-up= driven by incoming data. Others are Top-down= driven by the (listeners or speakers expectations)
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Natural language has two characteristics
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1. grammar= productive, meaning that infinite combinations of things can be expressed in it. 2. Arbitrariness: Lack of a necessary resemblance between a word or sentence and what it refers to All human languages are communication systems but not all communication systems have the prerequisites to be classified as natural languages
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Critical aspects of definition
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symbolic: we use spoken sounds and written words to represent and communicate about the word around us. these symbols are arbitrary, not resembling the objects they represent structured: by following rules of grammar, we can produce acceptable sentences. generative: A limited number of words can be combined on an endless variety of ways. Language that is generated created an infinite number of sentences
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The structure of language
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1. phonology 2. Syntax 3. Semantics 4. pragmatics
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Why study language?
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Miller (1981): "The human capacity for language made human culture possible, and culture, with all its social, artistic, technological and scientific innovation, set Homosapiens apart from all other animals" Language is related to nearly all aspects of thought Any scientific study of the human mind must include aspects of human language since language is the richest evidence of human thought Language is connected with intelligence
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Linguistics
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the study of language Linguistic competence: refers to the underlying linguistic knowledge that lets people produce and comprehend their language Linguistic performance: reflect linguistic competence only under completely ideal conditions
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Psycholinguistics
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The scientific study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and understand languages
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Aspects of language
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Sound (phonology) Meaningful sounds (morphology) Grammar (syntax) Meaning (semantics) Use (pragmatics)
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Phonology
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is the study of the ways in which phonemes can be combined in any given language. Is the study of systematic ways in which speech sounds are combined and altered in language
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Sound (phonology)
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Terminology phone:Any speech sound that is made by a number of our species and how founds are produced. Aka phonetics ENglish has 40 phonetic segments or phones phonemes: The basic sounds of a language. Subset of phones that are used in the specific language. different languages have different sounds. refer to the smallest unit of sound that makes a meaningful difference in a given language phonology: The smallest unit of spoken language that has meaning or idea of a language. The basic unit that have meaning morpheme: The smallest unit of spoken language in production speech segmentation.
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Sound (phonology) continues
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Speech is made up of small units called phonemes All English words can be made from approximately 40 phonemes Other languages may have more/less phonemes The phonetic alphabet has phonemes for all languages There are no markers in the speech stream where one phoneme ends and another begins Coarticulation: phonemes aften overlap in production Speech segmentation: we need to slice the speech stream into recognized phonemes This makes speech comprehension more difficult
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Difference between consonants and vowels
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1. vowels work without obstructing the airflow, simplt depenign on the shpae and position of the tongue and lips. Consonants are phonemes made by closing or at least almost clsojng, part of the mouth. they differ in place of articulation on menaing where the obstructing of the airflow occurs. EX: vocing ( z voiced and S is unvoiced).
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Phonolical rules
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governs the way in which phonemes can be combined. Explain how to pronounce new words and how to pronounce prefixes and suffixes to words, such as plural or past-tense endings. Languages sound differently because they have different sounds (phonemes =) and different rules for combing those sounds (phonology).
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Coarticulation:
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phonemes often overlap in production Descriptive rules: characterize which sentences are legal and which are not
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Speech segmentation:
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We need to slice the speech stream into recognized phonemes
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Spectrogram of a person saying a sentence
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...
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Morphology
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the study of word structure/ meaningful sound Morpheme: the minimal meaningful unit of a language Morphemes can be single phonemes or combinations of phonemes "Play" has one morpheme "Replay" has two: re-, and play "Player" has two: play, -er "Players" has three: play, er, s Understand the smallest unit of a sound that has a unique meaning Put the sounds together in some coherent way, identifying the meaningful unit of language.
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Grammar (syntax)
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Syntax: The grammatical rules that govern how words can be combined in a sentence. Is the arrangement of words within sentences or more broadly to the structure of sentences. Most people can easily distinguish between grammatically correct and incorrect sentences They show knowledge of syntax syntax: structure of each sentence needed to identify the morphemes Rules of grammar are not always explicitly taught Syntactical knowledge may be tacit knowledge Knowledge that we possess and use, without awareness that it is possessed (same as implicit memory) Many people cannot articulate the rules of grammar but follow them in their utterances Set of rules of a language. Ways of speaking that form intelligible phrases or utterances recognizable as examples of language that a native speaker of the language might produce. prescriptive rules: tell us how we should talk or write even though we may violate them
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Syntactic rules
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govern the ways in which different words or larger phrases can be combined to form legal sentences in the language. it meets two requirements. 1. The read should be able to describe every legal sentence 2. SHould never be able to describe an illegal sentence Consituents= divides words of a sentence into groups Nodes depicts the various constiwents of a sentences
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Tree diagram
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depicts the categorical constituent structure of the sentence. It explains why certain kinds of changes can be made in a sentence and others can't. Preposing: taking a certain part of a setence and moving it to the front. Tree diagram show which sentences can be preposed. Only constituents labeled as being whole phrases can undergo movement from one position in a sentence to another. this rule show how certain parts of sentences are formed and work together. Phrase structure rule: functions to generate, rerite rules describe the ways in which certain symbols can be rewritten as other symbols. Lexial-insertion rule: allows the insertion of words into the structures generated by the phrase structure rules. transformatiomnal rule turn strctures into other structures
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Sentences have structure
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The structure of a sentence Sentences have structure—they can be decomposed into constituent parts Tree diagrams breakdown a sentence into its parts of speech Noun and verb phrases Nouns, verbs, particles, etc. Theories of formal syntax provide some system of rules to explain patterns of acceptability/grammaticality and unacceptability/ungrammaticality
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Chomsky's Transformational grammar
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Theory of how grammatical knowledge is represented and processed Two levels of representation of the structure of sentences Surface structure: actual form of the sentence produced. Put ideas in real word. Express in a grammatical expressible words Deep structure: underlying form, which depicts the words and phrases within a sentence. We are born with deep meaning stuff. innate
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Chomsky's Transformational grammar
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Described a system of formal rules specifying how deep structures are to be transformed into surface structures Two sentences with different surface structure can have the same deep structure Steven wrote a book on language. A book on language was written by Steven. Chomsky believed that most knowledge of syntax is innate A baby can have a large body of prior knowledge about the structure of language in general, and need only actually learn the idiosyncratic features of the language to which he or she is exposed
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Semantics
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Has to do with meanings the area of psycholinguistics that examines the meanings of words and sentences Semantic theories of language emphasize how people understand the meaning of language, including words, sentences, and units larger than sentences Theories of semantics must explain. Incompatibly in the meaning of the words Semantics is the branch of linguistics and psycholinguistics devoted to the study of menaing
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Theories of semantics must explain
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1. Anomalies: (why it it contradictory to say things like coffee ice cream can take dictation "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." 2. Self contradictions: a sentence contradicts itself "This sentence is false." 3. Synonyms: Two or more statements have the same meanings Examples in syntax portion of the lecture 4. Entailments: Some statements entail additional meaning "Pat is my uncle" entails that Pat is a male 5. Ambiguity: discussed later. There are particular sentence that can be understood in different ways All these above explain how we use words menaings to process whole sentences and discourses.
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Exchaing
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occurs when two conditions are met 1. X gives w to Y 2. this obligates Y to give Z to X Exchanging creates an obligation for Y to give something back to X but Y ,might hchange the deal. Truth conditions: circumstances that make something true. To communicate verbally with someone in English, you must produce utterances that follow the rules of phology, syntax, semantics, and pragmantics
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In order to understand a sentence
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one must understand the meaning of each word in the sentence understand the syntax of the sentence understand the truth conditions of the sentence To understand a passage, one must understand the above as well as understand how the sentences relate to one another
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Semantic ambiguity
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something is ambiguous when it can be understood in two or more possible ways Types of ambiguity: 1. lexical ambiguity: When the ambiguity is in a single word 2. structural ambiguity (sometimes "syntactic ambiguity"): When the ambiguity is in a sentence or clause
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Lexical ambiguity is common
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Many words like "lie", "bank", etc., have more than one meaning Context can sometimes reduce lexical ambiguity Don't lie; I know the truth Don't lie on that bed; I just made it. To get some money, he went to the bank. To catch some fish, he went to the bank.
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Structural ambiguity is also fairly common
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They are hunting dogs." "Visiting relatives can be so boring." "The police must stop drinking after midnight."
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In normal speech
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ambiguity can sometimes be understood as something witty or deceitful
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Pragmatics
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Pragmantics: rules that are social rules of language. they include certain etiqutte conventions, such as not interrupting another speaker and beginning conversations with certain conventional greetings. 1. assertives 2. Directives 3. Commissive 4. expressives 5. declaractions way you speak to different people in your life. the social rules that underlie language use Pragmatics focuses on how speakers successfully communicate messages to their audience The Gricean Maxims Pragmatics is flow in language According to searle's speech act theory, part of our tab as listeners is to figure out which of the five types a particurlar utterances speakers anticipate the potentiall obstacles their listeners face in fulling a request and formulate it accordingly.
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The four maxims of the cooperative principle
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1. Maxim of Quantity: Make contribution as informative but not more than is required--avoid running off at the mouth 2. Maxim of Quality: Do not say what you believe is false or you have no evidence for truth--don't stretch the truth 3. Maxim of Relation: be relevant--avoid making statements irrelevant to the topic of conversation 4. Maxim of Manner: be clear and orderly--avoid vague or ambiguous statements
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Use (pragmatics)
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Functions of maxims These are assumptions listeners make about the way speakers will talk Can sometimes help reduce ambiguity If maxims are violated, partner in conversation is either trying to be funny or just being uncooperative (cooperative principle
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Neuropsychology of language
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Types of aphasia Alexia: inability to read Dyslexia refers to problems with reading or writing, but not as the result of brain damage Agraphia: inability to write Anomia: inability to name objects Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia are discussed in the next two slides Global aphasia: combination of Wernicke's and Broca's aphasia
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Broca's area
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In the LH inferior frontal lobe Involved in speech production Broca's aphasia: inability to create grammatically complex sentences. The loss or impairment of the ability to produce and/or comprehend language, due to brain damage. Is in the left hemisphere in frontal lobes. Speech is often described as telegraphic, containing only content words "Yes...ah...Monday...er...Dad and Peter H...and Dad...er...hospital...and ah...Wednesday" Video of patient with Broca's aphasia Broca's patient, "Tan"
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Wernicke's area
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In the LH superior temporal lobe Involved in the understanding and comprehension of spoken language and monitoring speech output Wernicke's aphasia: Impairment of language comprehension. Do not understand their speech. do not understand that they are making sense. neurological disorder leading to difficulty planning the movements necessary for speech. do not have linguistic thoughts Is in the temporal lobes Speech has a natural-sounding rhythm and a relatively normal syntax, but has no recognizable meaning "I called my mother on the television and did not understand the door." Video of patient with Werkicke's aphasia
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Other brain regions involved in language
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Visual cortex (occipital lobe) is crucial for reading Auditory cortex (temporal lobe) is crucial for speech comprehension (along with Wernicke's) Primary motor cortex (frontal lobe) is crucial for speech production (along with Broca's)
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Language and cognition
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What influence does language have over other cognitive processes? Two (of many) possible answers The modularity hypothesis: The Whorfian hypothesis (the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis):
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The modularity hypothesis:
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language and other cognitive processes are completely independent.
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The Whorfian hypothesis (the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis):
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language and other cognitive constants or influences thought ( strong/weaks. language completely controls thoughts) Linguists Sapir and Whorf claim that language influences (directs and constrains) thought We can only think about what we can speak of—if we do not have words for ideas, we are not capable of having those ideas Whorf's evidence for this claim Eskimo's have several words for snow, there is only one in English Eskimo's think about snow in more detail than English-speakers English has numerous color names, whereas some cultures' language (e.g., Dani) have only two (one meaning light and one meaning dark)— Assumption: English speakers can think about more colors than Dani people—NOT TRUE The Whorfian hypothesis has not been well supported Back to the Dani example Dani people can categorize, learn new names for colors, and essentially "think" about colors just like English-speakers Conclusions on Whorfian hypothesis Language does not seem to constrain thought Rather than language influencing thought, thought seems to influence language Skiers have more words for snow because they need to describe variable conditions, whereas for those who don't, a single word suffices Experts in fields develop their own jargon
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module
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is a part of a function that function independently of other functions. each part of that thing does it own work independent of the others A module is a self-contained component of a system In psychology, a module refers to is a part of the mind that does a certain cognitive process (independently of other cognitive processes)
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Fodor's views of the relationship between language and cognition
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Language is modular Language is independent of other cognitive processes Thoughts are merely represented in, not limited by, language
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Conclusions
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Language is an important cognitive process There are several aspects to language Phonology, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics Several brain regions are responsible for language Language may influence thought
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Language comprehension and production
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Language must be transformed from raw inpput into menaingful representations. 1. speech perception 2. speech errors production 3. Snetence comprehension 4. Comprehending text passages 5. Study grammars 6. Gricean maxims of conversation
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Speech perception
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We can undertsand the speech of someone talking to us unless the speech is in a foreign language. we hear one sound at a time by pausing
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Problems in speech perception
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1. speech is continous. rarely are there pauses around each sound. Spetrogram is a graphic representaion of speech showing the frequencies of sound in hertz 2. single phoneme sounds different depenging on context content effect; hear phonemems that are not there Phoneme restoration effect: listerner srestore the missing phonemes predicted by other linguistic information during the course of perception 3. Speech errors in production speech errors: instances in which what the speaker intended to say is quite clear but the speaker makes some substitution or reorders the lements. If menaing anf form processes operate simultaneously then sentences in which both kinds of similarity are present ought to produce the most errors because there is greater opportunity for error to come abaout
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sentence comprehension
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require us to retrieve the menaing of individual words and syntatic structure. More attention is required
