Concepts and Knowledge

Question 1

How are things organized? (hint: there are three terms)

Answer 1

Categories > exemplars > concepts

Question 2

What are categories?

Answer 2

Items grouped together

Question 3

What are exemplars?

Answer 3

Individual items within a category

Question 4

What are concepts?

Answer 4

General knowledge of a category

Question 5

What are the different levels of organization?

Answer 5

Superordinate (high level) -> basic (mid level) -> subordinate (low level)
e.g., mammal -> dog -> terrier

Question 6

What order will children learn in?

Answer 6

Basic -> superordinate -> subordinate

Question 7

What is the relationship between children learning and people with dementia forgetting

Answer 7

Reverse:
What gets forgotten first: subordinate -> superordinate -> basic

Question 8

What is cognitive economy?

Answer 8

Being able to identify an object with the most basic level

Question 9

What is generalization?

Answer 9

Process of getting a concept from a # of specific cases and applying that to help us

Question 10

What are defining features necessary (and sufficient) for?

Answer 10

Category membership
Has the features => is that concept

Question 11

What are characteristics features?

Answer 11

Common, but not essential for category membership

Question 12

What is the issue with identifying concepts through features?

Answer 12

Too rigid - if we encounter an unfamiliar feature we still know what concept it is

Question 13

What is the other idea about concepts and features?

Answer 13

Concepts are defined by resemblance to a collection of features

Question 14

How are feature lists and networks connected?

Answer 14

Early learning (features) -> later learning (network with interconnectivity)

Question 15

How are concepts organized/connected?

Answer 15

Through similarity

Question 16

What is a prototype?

Answer 16

Generalized from specific examplars

Question 17

How is a prototype used as reference?

Answer 17

Classified as being near or far

Question 18

What was the prototype experiment and its results?

Answer 18

Participants classified pattern of dots
Shown prototype => better at classifying
Closer to prototype => quicker to recognize

Question 19

What is the exemplar theory?

Answer 19

There is no single abstract prototype for a concept - we are constantly comparing things

Question 20

How do the prototype and exemplar theory compare?

Answer 20

of things in memory
Prototype: only one prototype model
Exemplar: every instance - more demand

Question 21

What is knowledge-based theory?

Answer 21

Implicit intuitive knowledge used - things have a reality that we have an understanding of (doesn’t use prototype or exemplar)

Question 22

Why are concepts created?

Answer 22

To meet goals

Question 23

How is knowledge stored?

Answer 23

As sensorimotor neural representation

Question 24

What is the perceptual symbols system?

Answer 24

Perception and concepts are linked as ‘perceptual symbols’
- Activating a concept will engage certain sensory-perceptions to form mental stimulation for a given goal or task

Question 25

What is the neural evidence for perceptual symbols system?

Answer 25

Specific brain regions that process movements associated with those words were active when reading the word

Question 26

What are sensory functional theories?

Answer 26

Concepts represented by defining features depend on living/nonliving

Question 27

What are ad-hoc categories?

Answer 27

Goal-driven categories our brains will create to help organize

Question 28

How is musicianship and bilingualism linked?

Answer 28

Music and language share cognitive processes - both enhance cognition