Summary
Summary 2.1 Problem 4
- Course
- Institution
Summary for p4 for course 2.1
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
ebru1365
Reviews received
Content preview
Problem 4Matlin, Baddeley, Riegler, Sternberg
Article: Contextual Prerequisites for Understanding by Bransford and Johnson
SIMILARITY BASED MODELS
- Judging the similarity between the target object and some standard in long-term
memory
- Bottom-up (perceive) approach to categorization
1. TRADITIONAL VIEW
- According to this, items are classified into particular categories if they have
certain features or characteristics
- E.g. triangle is a closed 3-sided figures with an angle sum of 180, shapes that have
these characteristics are triangles, shapes that don’t are not
Limitations:
- It’s difficult to specify many concepts in terms of features that are both necessary
and sufficient
- Can’t explain the fact that our representations have a graded structure
- Categories don’t have clear cut boundaries, they have fuzzy boundaries
2. THE PROTOTYPE APPROACH
- Members of a category are evaluated based on their resemblance to other
members
- Members that have a high family resemblance are typical members and serve as
the standard, the most representative member: prototype
- Those with low family resemblance are less typical members
- A category has a graded structure, beginning with the most
representative/prototypical members and it continues onto the less typical
members
- The prototype approach is similarity-based because membership is determined
by an item’s similarity to the prototype
- Prototypes are abstracted through repeated experience with category members
- Prototypicality: the degree to which members are representative of their
category
Characteristics of prototypes:
- They are supplied as examples of a category – typicality effect
- They are judged more quickly than non-prototypes, after semantic priming
o Semantic priming effect: people respond faster to an item if it was
preceded by an item with similar meaning
- They share attributes in a family resemblance category
o Family resemblance: no single attribute is shared by all examples but each
example has at least one attribute in common
Pros:
- Explains the ability to from concepts of groups
- Can be applied to complex social relations
- Accounts cultural differences
, Limitations:
- People’s representations of categories and their characteristics are more complex
- Fails to capture that category representation is sensitive to context, what we view
as a typical category depends on how we think about it
- Problems when conjunction of 2 concepts are considered
- We store more specific encounters, we don’t abstract everything
3. THE EXEMPLAR APPROACH
- We represent categories in terms of examples or category exemplars
- There is no single representation of a category that is abstracted over time
- Our representations consist of every single encounter we’ve had with that
concept and we retrieve one of those encounters
- The exemplar approach is also similarity based: objects and events are assessed
in term of similarity to a standard but in this case the standard is a specific
example rather than a generalized categorization
- The standard will also depend on circumstances
- The typicality effect is not a problem: we’re more likely to retrieve the example
that’s been encoded more frequently
- The biasing effect of context is not a problem: a particular context can activate
certain exemplars, priming the retrieval
Pros: Takes individual differences into account
Limitations:
- In some circumstances, people do use abstracted representations constructed
from repeated encounters
- Cognitive economy: every single encounter with every single encounter can’t be
stored in memory
- Because we don’t have enough capacity, the theory can’t explain what we keep
as examples and what we erase
PROTOTYPE VS EXEMPLAR APPROACH
- both compare examples you just encoded to what you have already encoded
- both make similar predictions about semantic memory
- Prototype: a representation is a typical item of the category
- Exemplar: a representation is a collection of numerous specific members of a
category
- Exemplar: you don’t need an abstraction process to find a typical, which forces
you discard useful information about individual cases
- The exemplar may be more useful for a category with few members
- Prototype may be more useful for a category with numerous members
- Individual differences may be important in the way people represent categories
NAMING OBJECTS – LEVELS OF CATEGORIZATION:
- Concepts are organized into hierarchies: 3 levels:
- Superordinate categories at the top e.g. item of furniture
- Basic-level categories at the intermediate level e.g. chair
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller ebru1365. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $4.84. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
73918 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now