Title: Cognitive Processes PSY 334
1Cognitive ProcessesPSY 334
- Chapter 5 Abstraction of Information into Memory
2Midterm Results
Score Grade N
42-53 A 11
37-41 B 6
32-36 C 5
27-31 D 13
0-26 F 7
Top score 50 Top score for curve 47 (2
people)
3Features of a Penny
- 1. Does the Lincoln on the penny face right or
left? - 2. Is anything above his head? What?
- 3. Is anything below his head? What?
- 4. Is anything to his left? What?
- 5. Is anything to his right? What?
4Demos
- Features of a penny
- http//newpenny.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Lin
coln_Penny_Obverse.jpg - Eidetic imagery
- http//www.gis.net/tbirch/x2.htm
5Wanners Experiment
- 1. When you score your results, do nothing to
correct your answers but mark carefully those
answers which are wrong. - 2. When you score your results, do nothing to
correct your answers but carefully mark those
answers which are wrong. - 3. When you score your results, do nothing to
your correct answers but mark carefully those
answers which are wrong. - 4. When you score your results, do nothing to
your correct answers but carefully mark those
answers which are wrong.
6Wanners Experiment
- People do not remember exact wording.
- Wanners experiment
- Two sentences differ in style
- Two sentences differ in meaning
- Subjects warned or not warned to pay attention to
style - Memory is better for changes in wording that
affect meaning. - Warning only helps memory for style.
7Wanners Results
8Memory for Visual Information
- Memory for pictures is very strong and better
than for words. - Mandlers study token vs type changes.
- Type meaning
- Token detail
- Type changes were easier to identify than token.
- Picture memory depends on meaning.
9Mandler Ritcheys Stimuli
10Droodles
Ship arriving too late to save a drowning witch
Man playing trombone in phone booth
11Droodles
- Bower, Karlin Dueck presented droodles with or
without their captions. - Subjects given labels were able to redraw them
with 70 accuracy. - Subjects without labels were 51 accurate.
- Memory depended on meaningful interpretation.
12Retention of Detail
- Perceptual detail is encoded but quickly
forgotten. - Gernsbachers picture reversals
- 10 sec delay 79 accuracy
- 10 min delay 57 accuracy.
- Andersons story sentences
- Immediate test 99 correct
- 2 min delay 56 correct
- Delay does not affect meaning accuracy.
13Gernsbachers Stimuli
14Andersons Story Sentences
- The missionary shot the painter.
- The missionary shot the painter.
- The painter was shot by the missionary.
- The painter shot the missionary.
- The missionary was shot by the painter.
- The first two sentences are True, the second two
are False. - Subjects recalled who was shot but not which
sentence they heard originally.
15Implications for Memory
- Memory is enhanced if people can attach meaning
to material. - Loud and fast rehearsal doesnt work.
- Meaningless words can be better remembered by
adding meaning - DAX is like DAD
- GIB is first part of gibberish
- KA6PCG my ham radio call letters.
16Propositional Representations
- Notation a method for describing the meaning
that remains once details have been abstracted
away. - Propositional representation uses concepts from
logic and linguistics to describe meaning. - Proposition the smallest unit of knowledge that
can be judged as true or false.
17Propositional Analysis
- A complex sentence consists of smaller units of
meaning (propositions). - If any of the propositions are untrue, the entire
sentence cannot be true. - The meaning of primitive assertions is preserved,
but not the exact wording.
18Kintschs Notation
- Each proposition is a list containing a relation
plus arguments - (relation, arguments)
- Relation organizes the arguments.
- Verbs, adjectives, other relational terms.
- Arguments particular times, places, people,
objects. - Nouns
- Relations connect arguments.
19Example
- Lincoln, who was president of the United States
during a bitter war, freed the slaves. - A. Lincoln was president of the United States
during a war. - B. The war was bitter.
- C. Lincoln freed the slaves.
20Kintschs Notation
- a. (president-of Lincoln, United States, war)
- b. (bitter war)
- c. (free Lincoln, slaves)
- The slaves were freed by Lincoln.
- Lincoln freed the slaves.
21Psychological Reality
- Psychological reality -- do propositions really
exist mentally? - Bransford Franks
- Presented 12 sentences with the same 2 sets of 4
propositions. - Tested on 3 kinds of sentences. Old (previously
viewed), new (containing same propositions),
noncase (new and containing different
propositions). - Able to identify noncase, but not old/new
22Bransford Franks Stimuli
- 1. (eat ants, jelly, past)
- 2. (sweet jelly)
- 3. (on jelly, table, past)
- 4. (in ants, kitchen, past)
- 1. (roll down rock, mountain, past)
- 2. (crush rock, hut, past)
- 3. (beside hut, woods, past)
- 4. (tiny hut)
23Propositional Networks
- Propositional network another way of
representing propositions (the structure of
meaning). - Nodes the propositions, including relations and
arguments. - Links labeled arrows connecting the nodes.
- Spatial location of nodes is arbitrary.
- Can show hierarchies of meaning.
24Sample Propositional Network
25How to Draw a Network
- Use Kintschs notation to write the propositions
contained in your sentence. - Draw a node for each proposition.
- It doesnt matter where you draw them.
- Nothing goes inside the nodes.
- Arguments relations are the link labels.
- Shared arguments connect nodes to each other.
26Associations Between Ideas
- Weisberg demonstrated that ideas are associated
in the ways shown in a propositional network. - Subjects memorized sentences.
- Given a word from the sentence, subjects were
asked to say the first word that came to mind. - Subjects cued with slow said children and
almost never bread.
27Weisbergs Stimuli
Subjects cued with slow said children and
never bread.
28Amodal vs Perceptual Symbol Systems
- Amodal symbol systems the meaning is abstracted
away from the visual or verbal modality. - Example propositional networks
- Perceptual symbol systems Barsalou proposes
that all information is represented perceptually
and is modality-specific. - Context is included as part of the memory.
29Evidence (Barsalou)
- Stanfield Zwaan read a sentence about a nail
pounded into either the wall or the floor. - Viewed a picture of a horizontal or vertical
nail. - Asked was this object mentioned in the sentence
you just read? - Faster at saying horizontal nail with wall and
vertical nail with floor.
30Paivios Dual-Code Compromise
- Paivio suggests that when we hear a sentence it
evokes visual images that are stored in place of
the words. - Findings that people can and do pay attending to
wording when warned to do so, support dual-code
theory. - Anderson considers Barsalous theory too
all-encompassing to be testable.
31Evidence (Anderson)
- 1. The lieutenant wrote his signature on the
check. - 2. The lieutenant forged a signature on the
check. - 1. The lieutenant enraged his superior in the
barracks. - 2. The lieutenant infuriated a superior in the
barracks.
Faster to confirm
writing forging are the same act with different
intentions
Slower to confirm
32Conceptual Knowledge
- Concept -- an abstraction formed from multiple
experiences. - Propositions eliminate perceptual details but
keep relationships among elements. - Categories eliminate perceptual details but
keep general properties of a class of
experiences. - Used to make predictions.
- Two kinds semantic networks, schemas
33Embodied Cognition
- Our understanding of language depends on covertly
acting out physically what is described. - Different modalities may connect via mirror
neurons. - Multimodal Hypothesis we can convert from one
modality to another. - Amodal Hypothesis there is an intermediate
meaning representation.
34Freelisting Task (Demo)
- On a sheet of scratch paper, please write as many
names of animals as you can think of.
35Semantic Networks
- Quillian information about categories stored in
a network hierarchy. - Nodes are categories.
- Isa links related categories to each other.
- Nodes have properties associated with them.
- Properties of higher level nodes are also true of
lower level nodes linked to them. - Categories are used to make inferences.
36Sample Category Hierarchy
37Psychological Reality of Networks
- Collins Quillian asked subjects to judge the
truth value of sentences - Canaries can sing 1310 ms
- Canaries have feathers 1380 ms
- Canaries have skin 1470 ms
- Frequently used facts also verified faster, so
stored with node - Apples are eaten
- Apples have dark seeds
38Schemas
- Schema stores specific knowledge about a
category, not just properties - Uses a slot structure mixing propositional and
perceptual information. - Slots specify default values for what is
generally or typically true. - Isa statement makes a schema part of a
generalization hierarchy. - Part hierarchy.
39Sample Schema for House
- Houses are a type of building.
- Houses have rooms.
- Houses can be built of wood, brick or stone.
- Houses serve as human dwellings.
- Houses tend to have rectilinear and triangular
shapes. - Houses are usually larger than 100 sq ft and
smaller than 10,000 sq ft.
40Isa Statements for House
- Isa building
- Parts rooms
- Materials woord, brick, stone
- Function human dwelling
- Shape rectilinear, triangular
- Size 100-10,000 square feet
41Psychological Reality of Schemas
- Brewer Treyens subjects left in a room for 35
sec, then asked to list what they saw there - Good recall for items in schema
- False recall for items typically in schema but
missing from this room. - 29/30 recalled chair, desk 8 recalled skull
- 9 recalled books when there were none
42Brewer Treyans Room
43Degrees of Category Membership
- Members of categories can vary depending on
whether their features satisfy schema
constraints - Gradation from least typical to most typical.
- Rosch rated typicality of birds from 1-7
- Robin 1.1
- Chicken 3.8.
- Faster judgments of pictures of typical items,
higher sentence-frame ratings.
44Disagreements at Category Boundaries
- McCloskey Glucksberg subjects disagree about
whether atypical items belong in a category - 30/30 apple is a fruit, chicken is not a fruit
- 16/30 pumpkin is a fruit
- Subjects change their minds when tested later.
- Labov boundaries for cups and bowls change with
context.
45Context Changes Boundaries
46Event Concepts (Scripts)
- Schank Abelson stereotypic sequences of
actions called scripts. - Bower, Black Turner script for going to a
restaurant. - Scripts affect memory for stories
- Story elements included in script well
remembered, atypical elements not recalled, false
recognition of script items. - Items out of order put back in typical order.
47Schema for Restaurant Visit
- Scene 1 Entering
- Look for table, decide where to sit, go to table,
sit down. - Scene 2 Ordering
- Look at menu, decide on food, order food, cook
prepares food, etc. - Scene 3 Eating
- Scene 4 Exiting
- Server gives bill to cust., pay bill, leave
48Two Theories
- What happens mentally when we categorize?
- Two theories are being debated we likely use
multiple ways. - Abstraction theory -- we abstract and store the
general properties of instances. - Prototype theory.
- Exemplar theory -- we store the multiple
instances themselves and then compare average
distances among them.
49Drawings of Artificial Animals
50Evidence From Neuroscience
- People with temporal lobe deficits selectively
impaired in recognizing natural categories but
not artifacts (tools) - People with frontoparietal lesions unaffected for
biological categories but cannot recognize
artifacts (tools). - Artifacts may be organized by what we do with
them whereas biological categories are identified
by shape.
51Two Patients with Impaired Knowledge of Living
Things