Semantic Memory

What is semantic memory?

Memory for general knowledge and facts not tied to personal experience.

What is a schema?

An organized knowledge structure that guides attention, encoding, and recall.

How do schemas affect memory?

They help organize information but can also cause false memories.

What is a category?

A group of related concepts based on shared features.

What are the three levels of categories?

Superordinate, basic, and subordinate.

Which level of categorization is most commonly used?

The basic level (e.g., “dog”).

What is the superordinate level?

A broad category (e.g., “animal”).

What is the subordinate level?

A specific category (e.g., “poodle”).

What is the classical view of categorization?

The idea that categories have strict definitions with necessary and sufficient features.

What is the main problem with the classical view?

Many real-world categories have fuzzy boundaries and lack defining features.

What is the prototype theory of categorization?

Categories are organized around an ideal or average member called a prototype.

What is the typicality effect?

Typical category members are processed and verified faster than atypical ones.

What is the exemplar theory?

Categorization is based on comparison to specific examples stored in memory.

How do prototype and exemplar theories differ?

Prototype uses an average representation; exemplar uses specific instances.

What is the theory-based (knowledge-based) view?

Categorization depends on knowledge of how features relate, not just on similarity.

What is an ad hoc category?

A category formed on the spot for a goal (e.g., “things to save in a fire”).

What is a concept?

A mental representation of a category.

What is the semantic network model?

Concepts are connected as nodes; closer links mean faster activation.

Who proposed the semantic network model?

Collins and Quillian.

What is cognitive economy?

Shared properties are stored once at the highest necessary level in memory.

What is spreading activation?

Activation of one concept primes related concepts (e.g., “doctor” → “nurse”).

What is the feature comparison model?

Categorization involves comparing defining and characteristic features.

How does the feature comparison model explain reaction times?

Faster responses occur for typical, high-overlap items.

What are schema-based memory errors?

People recall schema-consistent details that weren’t actually present.

What is a script?

A schema for a familiar sequence of events (e.g., a restaurant script).

What is encoding specificity?

Memory is best when encoding and retrieval conditions match.

What is the depth of processing theory?

Deep, semantic processing improves memory more than shallow processing.

Who conducted the depth of processing experiment?

Craik and Tulving (1975).

What did Craik and Tulving find about intention to learn?

Intention alone doesn’t improve encoding—depth of processing does.

What did Rosch’s category hierarchy show?

Superordinate (animal), basic (dog), and subordinate (poodle) levels exist.

What did Rosch and Mervis find about prototypes?

Typical items are verified and remembered faster than atypical ones.

What did Medin and Schaffer show about exemplars?

People use specific examples to categorize new or small categories.

What did Meyer and Schvaneveldt’s lexical decision task show?

Faster reaction to related word pairs (doctor–nurse) than unrelated ones (bread–car).

What did Brewer and Treyens’ office study show?

Schemas can cause false memory for expected items.

What did Schank and Abelson’s research show?

People use scripts to understand and remember event sequences.

What is the sentence verification task used for?

Testing how quickly people verify category relationships (e.g., “A canary is a bird”).

What evidence supports the typicality effect?

Faster verification and recall for typical category members.