Cognitive Psychology Chapter 9: Knowledge

Jimmy thinks a prototype of a bird is an actual bird species. Allan thinks a prototype of a bird is not an actual species, but an average representation of a bird. Who is correct?

Answer explanation

Allan is correct; prototypes are averages of a certain concept in a category, not an actual member within a category. For a bird, it would be like what one believed a general bird looked like.

Participants are given a category of "mammals". They are faster to say that a dog is a mammal compared to a platypus. In terms of the typicality effect, why does this happen?

Answer explanation

Dogs are highly typical members of mammals, whereas platypuses are not. Therefore, platypus have low typicality for a certain category (mammals) compared to dogs and are therefore less likely to be identified. This means platypus do not closely resemble the prototype for "mammals".

Many dogs look alike and have several characteristics in common. Which term is this referring to?

Answer explanation

Family resemblance: most members of a category resemble one another in various ways

Lucy sees an aquatic animal she's never seen before. She can see it has gills, a fin, and swims around underwater. She mentally clocks it as a fish. What process did Lucy just engage in?

Answer explanation

Categorization

Participants are asked to list all the types of fish they know. They are more like to name catfish and bluegill first compared to smalltooth sawfish. Why?

Answer explanation

Catfish and bluegill more closely resemble the prototype for fish compared to the sawfish.

Jorge thinks that an exemplar of a dog is a Border Collie. Killian thinks an exemplar of a dog is not a specific species, but an average representation of a dog. Who is correct? Why?

Answer explanation

Jorge because an exemplar is an actual member of a species, not an average representation

What is the psychologically privileged category for a non-expert? Provide an example of what this would look like.

Answer explanation

Basic; example is a chair being a piece of furniture

Is an expert birder more likely to say they saw a bird, or a common grackle? Why?

Answer explanation

Common grackle, because the psychologically privileged level for experts is specific, not basic

According to this model, will folks be quicker to say a canary is a bird, or a canary is a living thing? Why?

Answer explanation

A bird, because of hierarchical modeling. A canary is closer to activating the concept "bird" than it is to activating the concept "living thing"

What is a critique of Collins and Quillian's semantic model? Your answer should be in the form of an example.

Answer explanation

A robin is a bird is responded to quicker than an ostrich is a bird, even though from the model we would expect similar reaction times. This therefore does not explain the typicality effect.