PSYC 221 Chapter Notes -Parahippocampal Gyrus, Spreading Activation, Fusiform Face Area
31 Jan 2014
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Concept: a mental representation used for memory, reasoning, and using/understanding language. The best understood function of a concept is categorization, in which items are sorted into categories. For example, say you"re waiting to meet someone and they say that they drive an suv. Prototype: a typical member of the category. Prototypicality: how closely a category member resembles the prototype example. Family resemblance can increase a category member"s prototypicality. It comes down to a large overlap of common features. Sentence verification technique: participant is asked to answer yes if a sentence is correct and. No if the sentence is incorrect, as quickly as possible. Typicality effect: people are faster verifying sentences that contain objects high in prototypicality. Reaction time would be faster for the former: an apple is a fruit, a pomegranate is a fruit. This study looks at the priming effects on prototypicality. Participants were primed with the word green and then shown two coloured circles.
