Knowledge Representation and Categorization Models

Mental representations that group objects, events, or ideas sharing common properties. They help organize knowledge and simplify the world.

Groups of similar things, simplifying the world and making processing information easier.

A typical example of a category, an average representation based on past experiences.

The degree to which category members resemble a prototype, varying from strongly prototypical to less prototypical.

The tendency to recognize and categorize prototypical members faster than atypical ones.

Actual specific examples of a category a person has encountered. Categorization occurs by comparing new items to these stored examples.

A hierarchical organization of categories with three levels: superordinate (broad), basic (more specific), and subordinate (most specific).

The level in the hierarchy that provides enough detail without being overly specific and is most useful in everyday cognition.

Experts categorize things using more specific categories based on their knowledge. For example, a bird watcher would categorize a sparrow as a specific type of sparrow, rather than just as a 'bird'.

A model of knowledge organization that represents concepts as nodes connected in a hierarchical tree-like structure. Broader categories are higher up, while specific items are lower down.

A principle in the hierarchical model where properties are stored at the highest possible level to avoid redundancy. For example, 'can fly' is stored at the 'bird' level, not for each individual bird.

When a concept is activated in memory, related concepts are also activated. For example, thinking about 'dog' might activate 'bark' and 'pet'.

Models that use computational simulations to mimic how neurons in the brain process information. They represent knowledge as patterns of activation across nodes in a network.

Connectionist models learn by adjusting the strength of connections between nodes based on experience. This simulates how humans learn categories.

The ability of PDP models to tolerate damage without losing all function. It reflects how human cognition can withstand brain injury with minimal loss of function.

The idea that our knowledge about objects is separated into sensory properties (what it looks like) and functional properties (what it does).

The view that our understanding of concepts is linked to our sensory and motor experiences. For example, thinking about 'kicking' activates brain regions associated with leg movements.

A model that proposes specialized brain regions (spokes) for sensory and motor properties of concepts, and a central hub (anterior temporal lobe) that integrates this information for a coherent understanding.