Psychology 3130A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 3,4: Change Blindness, Intentionality, Prototype Theory
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20 Dec 2017
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Chapter 3: Knowledge and Memory
• In order to make predictions, refer to prior knowledge, and retrieve memories, a cognitive system needs to be able to
assess the relative degree of similarity between representations
• Rely on memory to assess a situation, make judgements and make decisions
• Rely on ST, working, to simultaneously consider contrasting alternatives
How does memory influence thinking
• Availability herusistic – proposed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky
o = people generally make judgements and decisions on basis of relevant memories that they retrieve
o search your memory and make decision on basis of available evidence
▪ e.g. where it can lead you wrong is high profie NFL domestic abuse cases
• actually lower than average rate of domestic violence, however because it receives such
attention people think it is a large issue in the NLF
• Pinker argues least violent era of human history
o A lot does’t shae this though, eause of es oeage
o Also do’t hae epeience of other historical eras or if we do not as fresh memory
• say availability heuristics and other phenomena indicate that higher order thinking abilities such as judgement, reasoning
and decision making are highly dependent on memory
How does memory function
• we divide the core operations into three areas: encoding, storage and retrieval
Encoding
• = term often used to describe way in which info is put into memory
• once object has been attended to, its valid candidate for encoding into memory
• encoding process creates a mental representation based on the amount of effort and amount of detail hat was processed
via attention
Memory Storage
• is a second function of memory
• at the fundamental level, representations are stored as patterns of activation and connectivity among neurons
• most of the general knowledge we have about the world and about objects and things in the world is stored and
manipulated conceptually
• conceptual proximity suggests some degree of neural overlap
• conceptually organized memory system allows you to predict that you would find other vegetables, squashes for sale at
same location (farmers market example)
• may have a script or schema for how to behave and what to expect at a market
• schema = mental representation that contains general information for how to think, behave and what to expect in a
common situation
Memory retrieval
• istake i etieal does’t eessail ea that a eakdo i etieal poess atuall aused the eo
o could have been made during initial encoding phase, but error may only be apparent during failure to retrieve
• could be failure to encode, not seeing proper cue
Varieties of memory
• memory is not a single process
ST and LT Memory
• memory is often divide in terms of duration
• assume there are sensory and ST memory systems which can process informational actively for ST use
• working memory is closely tied to active, conscious processing
• ST is usually distinguished from LT by duration, but also in the way it functions
• Most common theory of ST memory is working memory model of Alan Baddeley
o Assumes there is a system of neurological structures that work to process immediate sensory information
o Working memory systems acts as a buffer so that the information can be maintained, processed further or
discarded
o Auditory and verbal info is handled by system called the phonological loop
o visual and spatial info is handled by a system called the visuospatial sketchpad
o coordination is handled by a central executive
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▪ allocates resources, switches between systems and coordinates between and among representations
within a system
• phono loop is a phonological or acoustic store that is connected to inputs from the auditory cortex
• memory trace in the phon loop will fade after about two seconds unless its maintained or revived via articulatory control
process known as subvocal rehearsal (inner voice)
• most modes assume role for either central executive or executive functions
• in standard version of working memory the central executive coordinates resources between the two subsystems
• other modes place emphasis on the independent operation of the executive functions
• executive functions are usually defined as domain-general characteristics such as task switching or inhibitory resources
• a domain general process is one that is available for others acts of cognition and thinking, regardless of the modality or the
domain
• task switching = acts switching attention from one behaviour to another
• inhibition is another domain general characteristics
o allows cognitive systems to ignore irrelevant perceptual features or irrelevant thoughts/emotions
• executive functions seem to be one of the biggest distinctions between higher-order thought in young children and higher-
order thought in adults
• because executive functions seem to play such a large role in higher-order thought, many researchers have proposed that
executive functions are the primary intellectual component of working memory
o under this proposal, efs serves as a domain general working memory and seem to be the primary determinant of
general intelligence
o lower level components (phon loop and viso sketchpad) may not be contributing to higher order thought to same
degree as efs
• in these treatments, efs availability and capacity are core determinants of thinking and reasoning ability
Declarative and non-declarative memory
• declarative memory usually thought to be the kind of memory that one can declare the existence of
o memory for ideas, facts, events, places, personal characteristics
• semantic memory vs episodic
o semantic as memory for known facts and episodic as for events that are personally relevant and have some degree
of mental time travel
• non-declarative memory includes memory for things that are difficult or impossible to declare the existence of such as
procedural memory and motor memory
Semantic memory: memory for facts
• distinction between a specific event and general knowledge is one that was made most strongly by psychologist Endel
Tulving
o distinguished between semantic memory, which is memory for facts and general knowledge, and episodic memory
which is memory for the past, memory with a personal connection and temporal dimension
• semantic memory is usually thought to be organized conceptually
• Collins and Quillian suggested hierarchical approach for semantic memory organization
o Insight was that some degree of hierarchical structure imposed on knowledge representation would result in an
efficiency
o Knowledge is organized in this system as a hierarchy within a spreading activation system
o Individual nodes represent concepts and facts, and links bw these nodes represent relationships between concepts
o Attributes of the higher-order node are true of lower order nodes
o Subordinate facts nad concepts inherit properties of the superordinate nodes
• Support for this model comes from the form of a sentence verification tasks
• In the sentence verification task, subjects are given a statement and are asked to verify if the statement is true, and answer
yes or no; Dependent variable is reaction time; do birds sing vs do birds have skin
o Response takes longer; because canaries and singing is stored at the same node while canaries and skin, activation
needs to spread to superordinate info
• Basic hierarchial odel does’t deal ill ith tpialit effets
o some concepts seem to bypass the hierarchy altogether – Medin and Smith refer to these as nested concepts
• Colin and Loftus suggested that information is represented in a spreading activation network
o Nodes of related concepts are linked by associations
o The strength of association is represented by the length
o Activation spreads through this network
• John Andersons ACT-R model emphasizes associations between nodes and spreading of activation
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