Lecture 12: Semantic Memory and Categorization

A collection of vocabulary flashcards based on Lecture 12 covering semantic memory, categorization, and related theories.

Explicit/Declarative Memory

A type of memory that is conscious, verbalizable, and involves knowing that.

Episodic Memory

Memory of personal episodes tied to a specific time and place, such as personal experiences.

Semantic Memory

General knowledge and memory of facts not tied to specific times or places.

Categorization

The process through which semantic memories are organized around categories to facilitate knowledge organization.

Necessary Features

The essential characteristics that must be present for something to belong to a category.

Sufficient Features

The characteristics that are enough for something to fit into a category if present.

Probabilistic Categories

Categories defined by characteristic properties rather than strict necessary and sufficient conditions.

Fuzzy Boundaries

The concept that items belong to a category if they are sufficiently similar to members of that category.

Typicality Effects

The phenomenon where people are faster to verify typical exemplars of a category than atypical ones.

Exemplar Theory

A theory stating that items are categorized based on their similarity to multiple stored examples.

Prototype Theory

A theory suggesting that items are categorized based on their similarity to an average or idealized representation.

Minimality

The principle that the distance between a concept and itself must be the smallest possible value.

Symmetry

The principle stating that the similarity between two concepts should be the same regardless of the order of comparison.

Triangle Inequality

The principle stating that if concept A is similar to concept B, and B is similar to C, then A should be similar to C.

Tversky’s Featural Contrast Model

A feature-based approach to explain similarity based on shared and different features of two items.