Hi
On Fri, 27 Oct 2000, Annette Taylor wrote:
> Question 1: would knowledge of abstract concepts, like 'justice' be
> considered semantic (declarative) memory, or nondeclarative memory??
> Whereas a concrete concept, like "hat" would be clearly declarative
> (semantic).
Both would be declarative, I think, but there may be other
differences between their representation depending on specifics
of the semantic model. Paivio's Dual Coding Theory (DCT), for
example, hypothesizes that the meanings of abstract words are
represented largely in a verbal system (equivalent to the
associative networks that comprise most semantic models [e.g.,
Collins & Quillian], except that nodes are verbal, rather than
abstract concepts). Meanings of concrete words, on the other
hand, are represented both verbally (like the abstract) and
imaginally, through referential connections to the kinds of
non-verbal, perceptual information we have stored about concrete
objects (e.g., prototypical shape, barking, ...). According to
DCT, it is these imaginal codes that account for the superiority
of concrete words in so many tasks (e.g., memory, sentence
comprehension, ease of definition, categorizability,
...). Others explain these effects by referring to other
correlated variables (e.g., context availability), although I
don't always see the difference between these alternative
candidates and imagery ability.
Best wishes
Jim
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James M. Clark (204) 786-9757
Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax
University of Winnipeg 4L05D
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark
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