PSYA01H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Semantic Network, Problem Solving, Linguistic Relativity
Chapter 8
8.1 The Organization of Knowledge
• A concept is the mental representation of an object, event, or idea.
o There are very few independent concepts. You do not have just one concept for
chair, table, or sofa.
o Each of these concepts can be divided into smaller groups with more precise
labels such as arm chair or coffee table. Similarly, all of these items can be
lumped together as furniture.
• Categories: refer to these clusters of interrelated concepts.o We form these groups using a
process called categorization.
• Classical categorization: is the theory that claims that objects or events are categorized
according to a certain set of rules or by a specific set of features.
• Graded membership: is the observation that some concepts appear to make better
category members than others.
• Psychologists have researched classical categorization using a behavioral measure
known as the sentence- verification technique, where volunteers wait for a sentence to
appear in front of them on a computer screen and respond as fast as they can with a
yes or no answer to statements such as A sparrow is a bird, or, A penguin is a bird.
• I ost ases, sujets alost alas aser es faster to sparro tha to pegui.
While both are equally good fits for the definition, this occurs because sparrows are
somehow more bird-like than penguins.
Prototypes: Categorization by Comparison
• Prototypes: are mental representations of an average category member.
Ex. given a robin, a sparrow, and a blue jay, your prototypical bird would look
something like a mixture or the average of all three.
• If you encounter a little creature you have never seen before and its basic shape
resembles your prototype of a bird, you may classify the creature as a bird.
• The main advantage of prototypes is that they help explain why some category
members make better examples than others.
o Ostriches are birds just as much as blue jays, but they do not resemble the rest
of the family very well. In other words, blue jays are closer to the prototypical
bird.
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Networks and Hierarchies
• A semantic network is an interconnected set of nodes (or concepts) and the links that
join them to form a category
• Nodes: are circles that represent concepts, and links connect them together to
represent the structure of a category as well as the relationships among different
categories.
Priming and Semantic Networks
• Priming is the activation of individual concepts in long-term memory.
• Psychologists can test for priming through reaction time measures such as the
sentence-verification task or through a method called the lexical decision task.
o A volunteer sits at a computer and stares at a focal point. Next, a string of
letters flashes on the screen. The volunteer responds yes or no as quickly as
possible to indicate whether the letters spell a word. Using this method, a
volunteer should respod faster that apple is a ord if it follos the ord
fruit tha if it follos the ord us.
o Average response times were also faster when the holiday-themed words were
congruent i seaso. For eaple, ords suh as utraker ad reideer
showed priming effects during December.
Culture and Categories
• The human brain is wired to perceive similarities and differences, and the end result of this
tendency is to categorize items based on these comparisons.
• Our natural tendency to do so interacts with our cultural experiences; how we categorize
objects depends to a great extent on what we have learned about those objects from
others in our culture.
• Categorization is based – at least to some extent – on cultural learning.
• Cultural factors not only influence how we categorize individual objects, but also how they
relate to one another
• Brain regions that are involved in object recognition and processing are activated differently
in people from Western and Eastern cultures.
• Brain regions that are involved in processing individual objects are more highly activated
when Westerners view focal objects against background scenery, whereas people from East
Asian countries appear to attend to background scenery more closely than focal objects.
• Linguistic relativity: (or the Whorfian hypothesis) is the theory that the language we
encounter, and use determines how we understand the world.
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Ex. The ord ept he desriig a gasolie arrel ould desrie that it as o
longer full in a useful way; in other words, there was not a usable amount of gasoline in
it.
8.2 Problem Solving, Judgment, and Decision Making
• Psychological science has shown that the luxury of choice might actually be better described
as a burden.
• The more choices you have for something, the less likely you are to be satisfied with your
decision. It has also been found that individuals who regularly strive for perfection in their
decisions – maximizers, as they are called – are generally less satisfied than people who
simply try to find what is good enough to suit their purposes
• Problem solving means accomplishing a goal when the solution or the path to the solution is
not clear
States and Stages
• The initial state describes what the condition is at the outset of the problem.
• The goal state describes what you need or desire as an outcome.
• Obstacles are things that slow or prevent progress toward the goal state.
• Operators are techniques we use to overcome the obstacles to reach the goal state.
• A well-defined problem is a problem that has a clear initial state and goal state.
Ex. the iitial state, I’ old, has the operator, Put o a seater, ad so the
goal state, I’ ofortale, is ahieed
• An ill-defined problem is a problem that may be lacking definition in one or more ways,
such as an ambiguous initial state or a lack of familiar operators.
Ex. the iitial state, I eed to thik of a topi for ter paper, has the
operator, Flip through our faorite hapter i the tetook to fid hat
interests you, ad so the goal state, I’ goig to rite aout ulture ad
laguage, is ahieed.
Problem-Solving Strategies and Techniques
• Algorithms are problem-solving strategies based on a series of rules.
o They are very logical and follow a set of steps, usually in a preset order.
Computers are very good at using algorithms because they can follow a
preprogrammed set of steps and perform thousands of operations every
second.
o Humans are not always so careful and tend to rely on intuition to find operators
ad solutios that just see right.
• Heuristics: are problem-solving strategies that stem from prior experiences and provide
an educated guess as to what the most likely solution is
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Document Summary
8. 1 the organization of knowledge: a concept is the mental representation of an object, event, or idea, there are very few independent concepts. You do not have just one concept for chair, table, or sofa: each of these concepts can be divided into smaller groups with more precise labels such as arm chair or coffee table. I(cid:374) (cid:373)ost (cid:272)ases, su(cid:271)je(cid:272)ts al(cid:373)ost al(cid:449)a(cid:455)s a(cid:374)s(cid:449)er (cid:862)(cid:455)es(cid:863) faster to sparro(cid:449) tha(cid:374) to pe(cid:374)gui(cid:374). While both are equally good fits for the definition, this occurs because sparrows are somehow more bird-like than penguins. Prototypes: categorization by comparison: prototypes: are mental representations of an average category member. Ex. given a robin, a sparrow, and a blue jay, your prototypical bird would look something like a mixture or the average of all three. In other words, blue jays are closer to the prototypical bird. Next, a string of letters flashes on the screen.
