Cognitive Processes PSY 334 Chapter 5 – Meaning-Based Knowledge Representation

Contribution of Behaviorism  “Behaviorism helped by setting up a preliminary model of what happens in the procedure of information processing and emphasized the importance of behavior as a clue to how the mind works.”  “Preliminary model: Input (stimulus)  MIND (black box)  output (behavior)”

Contribution of Behaviorism  “Behaviorists looked at stimuli coming from the world. They believed that the mind was a black box and so there was no way to know what was going on but to look at the external behavior or action of what a person would do in response to some external stimuli. Behaviorism helped to account for the idea that cognition can be studied by looking at one’s external behavior for cues.”

Propositional Representations  Notation – a method for describing the meaning that remains once details have been abstracted away.  Propositional representation – uses concepts from logic and linguistics to describe meaning.  Proposition – the smallest unit of knowledge that can be judged as true or false.

Propositional Analysis  A complex sentence consists of smaller units of meaning (propositions).  If any of the propositions are untrue, the entire sentence cannot be true.  The meaning of primitive assertions is preserved, but not the exact wording.

Kintsch’s Notation Each proposition is a list containing a relation plus arguments: (relation, arguments)  Relation – organizes the arguments. Verbs, adjectives, other relational terms.  Arguments – particular times, places, people, objects. Nouns  Relations connect arguments.

Psychological Reality  Psychological reality -- do propositions really exist mentally?  Bransford & Franks: Presented 12 sentences with the same 2 sets of 4 propositions. Tested on 3 kinds of sentences. Old (previously viewed), new (containing same propositions), noncase (new and containing different propositions).  Able to identify noncase, but not old/new

Propositional Networks  Propositional network – another way of representing propositions (the structure of meaning).  Nodes – the propositions, including relations and arguments.  Links – labeled arrows connecting the nodes.  Spatial location of nodes is arbitrary.  Can show hierarchies of meaning.

Associations Between Ideas  Weisberg – demonstrated that ideas are associated in the ways shown in a propositional network. Subjects memorized sentences. Given a word from the sentence, subjects were asked to say the first word that came to mind. Subjects cued with “slow” said “children” and almost never “bread”.