| What are concepts? | Concepts are mental representation of knowledge (semantic memory), i.e. categories of objects*, schemata for events, and relationships.
Once perceived entity belongs to a concept (categorization), other properties, actions, perception, guide attention, related memory etc (inferential power)
Higher-level mental activity - such as problem solving and decision making - involves imagining possible actions, choices and inferences, in terms of concepts (and schemata) |
| How are concepts organized? | Concepts are organized in concept hierarchies, superordinate, basic, and subordinate levels. |
| What are the different theories of representation of concepts? | Definitional
Typicality approach
Prototype approach
Exemplar-based representations
Knowledge-based theories
Essentialism
Grounded representations
DTPELEG
Dragons teared Peters elegant Leg extremely graphically |
| What are is the problem with defining concepts? | Definitions are based on other definitions (what is a container?)
Abstract concepts are often difficult to define.
Related concepts have fuzzy boundaries, not string (binary) definitions (e.g., chair vs stool) |
| What is typicality? | Typicality is the Estenstad to which an object is representative of a concept. How typicality is A Robin and B Penguin to a bird? A 1.002 and B 4.53 |
| Name a study where the typicality approach was used. | Rosch, 1975 tried to study how fast responses were to a object sorting was following a prime of higher-level concept, such as:
Prime: Bird —-> Picture: Eagle = Bird? Yes / No And response time. |
| How is objects sorted in a typicality approach? | Sorted into hierarchies with certain family resemblances: Members of a concept/category top be similar to each other (but without having any one characteristic in common to all of them) e.g furniture. |
| What is the prototype approach / what is a prototype? | A prototype is the ideal example that best represents the concepts/category; it has features most likely shared by all members. The prototype is the basis for the categorization; I.e. new exemplars are “compared” with the prototype for classifications.
Two types of examples:
Prototypical exemplar (e.g Robin)
Abstract prototype |
| Name a study that looked into the formation of prototypes | Poster & Keele, 1968 looked at how prototypes were formed in human schemas. They first familiarized people with original schemas of spots organized into certain forms. They then distorted these forms and asked people to place them into the categories they mostly resemble.
They found that people made fewer errors to the distorted schemas then to the never before seen dots. |
| Is there anything in daily life that hints to the formation of prototypical categorization? | We do so in Art. We categorize the works of artists fairly easy in a prototypical way.
In Watanabe et al 1995, it was also shown that pidgeons can learn to categorize art by artist. They could tell the difference between Monet and works by other artists. |
| Are exemplars stored? Have any studies tried to answer that question? | Allen & Brooks, 1991 tried to figure out where people would be able to classify and differentiate between two species they called builders and diggers. They gave certain rules to one group, and none to other. People had some difficulty categorizing negative matches correctly. This indicated that exemplars appear to be stored during the test phase. |
| What is knowledge-based theories? | Knowledge based theories state that categories are formed based on (deep) knowledge and not (only) on superficial similaries. |
| What do we mean by ad hoc categories when talking about knowledge-based theories? | Ad hoc categories are formed based on goals, and not necessarily predefined by superficial appearance/similarity. |
| What is essentialism? | Essentialism state that all instances of a given category/concept share som key properties which are critical for the definition. F.ex Molecular change, functional change and physical change. Artifacts are deemed to be more determined by functionality, while natural kinds are mostly depended on molecular differences, and slightly more on physical appearance then artifacts. |
| So if we are to summarize, How do we cetegorize? | Definition approach: Might work for concepts which have a explicit definition. (Right angled triangle)
Prototype approach assume the existence of “prototypes” which features are most likely true for all members belonging to the same category.
Exemplar theories assume that concepts are represented purely by exemplars.
Knowledge-based theories: Emphasise that concepts can be formed based on deep knowledge.
Essentialism: All instances of a given concept share some key properties which are critical for the definition. |
| What is meant by a grounded representation? | That a conceptual representation is based on sensory-motor codes (no a nodal codes required). That is; a concept is represented by an re-enactment of perceptual motor and introspective states acquired during experience of the world. In other words, cognition is based on simulation of precious perceptual experience. |
| What idea is grounded representation composed of? E.g what is the basic assumption underlying amodal symbol systems? | The basic assumption underlying amodal symbol systems is that perceptual states are translated into a completely new representational system that describes these states amodally. As a result, the internal structure of these symbols is unrelated to the perceptual states that produced them, with conventional associates establishing reference instead. |
| So what is the basic assumption underlying “grounded representation?” | That subsets of perceptual states in the sensory-motor systems are extracted and stored in long-term memory. As a result, the internal structure of these symbols is modal, and they are analogically
related to the perceptual states that produced them. |
| Is there any neurological evidence for grounded representations? | Yes. Studies by Chao & Martin, 2000, have found that “Seeing a hammer activates” the grasping regions of the brain’s motor cortex, and Simmons et al., 2005 found that seeing found activates gustatory brain regions. |
| Any studies that have shown any indication that grounded representations might actually be something? | Witt et al., 2010 found that Object naming (classification) while participants squeezed and maintained constant pressure on a small foam ball with either left or right hand found that hand related items took longer to name. Why? Maybe because the brain area is already in use, indicating a bottleneck. Another study found the same with both hand related and foot related action verbs while classifying items and checking for response time. |
| What is a modality-specific representation? | A modality-specific representation indicated that information pertaining to a specific modality of experience is processed within the corresponding sensory, motor or affective system. |
| What is a multi-modal representation? | Information that does not pertain to a single modality of experience; representation store information about cross-modal conjunctions.
Where does the grounded representation theory struggle?
It struggles with explaining abstrakt concepts (e.g. Justere), although metaphors foten appear sensory. (long arm of justice) |
| What is the functional-equivalence hypothesis? | That imagery functions are comparable to perception, both appear to rely on similar brain processes. |
| What do we know from studies of images scanning about the functional-equivalence hypothesis? | That there is a strong correlation between distance on a map and response time in “mental scanning”. Indicating that the longer distance on object is related to response time in “mental scanning” Kosslyn et al. 1978 |
| Are there any other studies that show similar effects about the functional-equivalence hypothesis? | In Shepard and Metzler, 1971, when subjects were told to mentally rotate objects, it was found that response time was proportional to the degree of rotation to make two figures overlap. |
| So are there any differences between mental images and images? | Well, yes. A study done by Chambers & Reisberg, 1985, found that there were differences in pictures and mental images. When subjects were shown a picture that could be either a duck, or a rabbit and asked to draw the picture from memory it was found that people had difficulty reversing the mental images. That was not the case for physical images. “E.G” Do you see the duck?” |
| Are there any neurological difference between imagery and perception in brain activation? | A study done by Ganis et al. 2004 found that although similar regions appear activated the activation is reduced in imagery compared with perception. |
