Cognitive Psychology Exam 3 Study Guide Chapter 8 Semantic Memory Lecture Notes and Book Notes Semantic memory includes general knowledge lexical or language knowledge and conceptual knowledge Semantic memory allows us to organize objects according to concepts o Also allows us to make inferences going beyond the information given o Allows us to decide which objects are similar o Semantic memory helps us determine locations read sentences solve problems and Semantic memory is your organized knowledge about the world make decisions Prototype theory Eleanor Rosch o Organize each category on the basis of a prototype the item that is most typical and representative of the category typical dog amalgamation of all dogs o Prototype approach decide whether an item belongs to a category by comparing that item with a prototype o Members of a category differ in prototypicality degree to which they are representative of their category Ex a robin and a sparrow are very prototypical birds whereas an ostrich and penguin are nonprototypes situated cognition approach emphasizes importance of context and specific situation so in a zoo might consider ostrich and penguin to be more prototypical o Prototype the item that is the best most typical example of a category a prototype therefore is the ideal representative of this category Characteristics of Prototypes o 1 Prototypes are supplied as examples of categories o Mervis and colleagues Prototype ratings for examples of categories Examples people provided for some norms and then asked different group of people to supply prototype ratings for each of these examples Items rated most prototypical were the same items that other people had supplied most often in the category norms Results account for typicality effect when judging whether an item belongs to a particular category typical items judged faster than atypical items People often supply prototypes as examples more frequently than they supply nonprototypes People make quicker judgments about category membership when assessing prototypes rather than nonprototypes o 2 Prototypes are judged more quickly than nonprototypes after semantic priming Semantic priming effect people respond faster to an item if it was preceded by an item with similar meaning Priming facilitates responses to prototypes more than it facilitates responses to nonprototypes Priming inhibits judgments for nonprototypes In a study if you see the word red you expect a bright red color If you see a dark muddy red the priming offers no advantage and you actually need extra time to reconcile your image of a bright red with the muddy color you really see o 3 Prototypes share attributes in a family resemblance category Family resemblance No single attribute shared by all examples of a concept however each example has at least one attribute in common with some other example of the concept Rosch and Mercis 1975 Prototypicality judgments about members of several categories List the attributes possessed by each item The most prototypical item shared the largest number of attributes with the other items in the category Ex For the word vehicle a car most prototypical vehicle has wheels moves horizontally and uses fuel Compared to an elevator which has relatively few attributes in common with other items o Conclusions about the Prototype Approach Can account for our ability to form concepts for groups that are loosely structured Can be applied to social relationships inanimate objects nonsocial categories o Problems Concepts can be unstable and variable e g prototype ratings can shift We often do store specific information about individual examples of a category not just prototypes Schema generalized knowledge about a situation an event or a person Schema theories are especially helpful when psychologists try to explain how people process complex situations and events Schema theories propose that people encode generic information about a situation then use this information to understand and remember new examples of the schema o This is just like what happened when How Schemas Relate to the Themes of This Book o Top down and bottom up processing allow us to predict what will happen in a new situation o Heuristic o Active processing schemas emphasize active nature of our cognitive processes o Schemas can lead to errors o Errors usually make sense within the framework of that schema Schemas Throughout Psychology o Piaget o Bartlett o Social Psychology o Schema therapy Schemas and Memory Selection Brewer and Treyens 1981 o Recall objects from an office waiting room o Highly likely to recall objects consistent with office schema o Less likely to remember object inconsistent with office schema Davidson 1994 o Read stories describing well known schemas o Especially likely to recall schema inconsistent events that interrupted the normal expected story General Conclusions about Schemas and Memory Selection o If the information describes a minor event and time is limited people tend to remember information accurately when it is consistent with a schema e g the desk and the chair in the office o If the information describes a minor event and time is limited people do not remember information that is inconsistent with the schema e g the wine bottle and the picnic basket o People seldom create a completely false memory for a lengthy event that did not occur e g the lecturer did not dance across the room Conclusions about Schemas o Schemas often influence our cognitive processes in the initial selection of material in remembering visual scenes in abstraction in the final process of integration o We often select material for memory that is not consistent with our schemas o We may sometimes remember that we saw only a portion of an object rather than the o We frequently recall the exact words of a passage as it was originally rather than complete object storing an abstract memory o We may keep the elements in memory isolated from each other rather than integrating these elements together o In summary both schemas top down processing and unique features of each stimulus bottom up information influence memory Network Models of Semantic Memory Network models o Propose a netlike organization of concepts in memory o Many interconnections o Meaning of a concept depends on the concepts to which it is connected o Node one unit located within the network When you see or hear the name of a concept the node representing that concept is Spreading activation the
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