Does category size affect categorization time

doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(70)80084-6

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Does category size affect categorization time

Journal Article•DOI•

Does category size affect categorization time

Allan Collins¹, M. Ross Quillian¹•Institutions (1)

BBN Technologies¹

01 Aug 1970-Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior (Academic Press)-Vol. 9, Iss: 4, pp 432-438

TL;DR: The authors found that it takes longer to categorize object names (e.g., collie or tulip) into larger categories than into smaller categories, and attributed this effect to the fact that their different-size categories were always nested.

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About: This article is published in Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior.The article was published on 1970-08-01. It has received 132 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Categorization.

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Journal Article•DOI•

A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing

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Allan Collins¹, Elizabeth F. Loftus•Institutions (1)

BBN Technologies¹

01 Nov 1975-Psychological Review

TL;DR: The present paper shows how the extended theory can account for results of several production experiments by Loftus, Juola and Atkinson's multiple-category experiment, Conrad's sentence-verification experiments, and several categorization experiments on the effect of semantic relatedness and typicality by Holyoak and Glass, Rips, Shoben, and Smith, and Rosch.

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Abstract: This paper presents a spreading-acti vation theory of human semantic processing, which can be applied to a wide range of recent experimental results The theory is based on Quillian's theory of semantic memory search and semantic preparation, or priming In conjunction with this, several of the miscondeptions concerning Qullian's theory are discussed A number of additional assumptions are proposed for his theory in order to apply it to recent experiments The present paper shows how the extended theory can account for results of several production experiments by Loftus, Juola and Atkinson's multiple-category experiment, Conrad's sentence-verification experiments, and several categorization experiments on the effect of semantic relatedness and typicality by Holyoak and Glass, Rips, Shoben, and Smith, and Rosch The paper also provides a critique of the Smith, Shoben, and Rips model for categorization judgments Some years ago, Quillian1 (1962, 1967) proposed a spreading-acti vation theory of human semantic processing that he tried to implement in computer simulations of memory search (Quillian, 1966) and comprehension (Quillian, 1969) The theory viewed memory search as activation spreading from two or more concept nodes in a semantic network until an intersection was found The effects of preparation (or priming) in semantic memory were also explained in terms of spreading activation from the node of the primed concept Rather than a theory to explain data, it was a theory designed to show how to build human semantic structure and processing into a computer

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7,586 citations

Cites background or methods from "Does category size affect categoriz..."

...The model they ascribed to Collins and Quillian (1970a) assumed that subjects perform the category-matching task by retrieving their stored category for the stimulus word and comparing this to the given categories to see if it matches one of them....
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...Such an effect has been found repeatedly (Collins & Quillian, 1969, 1970a, 1972b; Schaeffer & Wallace, 1969, 1970; Wilkins, 1971)....
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...The way evidence is aggregated in the theory also explains the common finding (Collins & Quillian, 1970a, 1972b; Holyoak & Glass, 1975 ; Rips et al., 1974) that people are fast to decide that semantically unrelated concepts are different (e.g., that a book is not a dog)....
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...Their experiment was designed to distinguish between two kinds of models, one they attribute to Landauer and man (1968) and one they attribute to Collins and Quillian (1970a)....
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...There is a rich variety of misinterpretations of Quillian's theory, many of them deriving from Collins's (Collins & Quillian, 1969, 1970a, 1970b) simplifications of the theory....
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Journal Article•DOI•

A Theory of Memory Retrieval.

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Roger Ratcliff¹•Institutions (1)

Dartmouth College¹

01 Jan 1978-Psychological Review

TL;DR: A theory of memory retrieval is developed and is shown to apply over a range of experimental paradigms, and it is noted that neural network models can be interfaced to the retrieval theory with little difficulty and that semantic memory models may benefit from such a retrieval scheme.

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Abstract: A theory of memory retrieval is developed and is shown to apply over a range of experimental paradigms. Access to memory traces is viewed in terms of a resonance metaphor. The probe item evokes the search set on the basis of probe-memory item relatedness, just as a ringing tuning fork evokes sympathetic vibrations in other tuning forks. Evidence is accumulated in parallel from each probe-memory item comparison, and each comparison is modeled by a continuous random walk process. In item recognition, the decision process is self-terminating on matching comparisons and exhaustive on nonmatching comparisons. The mathematical model produces predictions about accuracy, mean reaction time, error latency, and reaction time distributions that are in good accord with experimental data. The theory is applied to four item recognition paradigms (Sternberg, prememorized list, study-test, and continuous) and to speed-accuracy paradigms; results are found to provide a basis for comparison of these paradigms. It is noted that neural network models can be interfaced to the retrieval theory with little difficulty and that semantic memory models may benefit from such a retrieval scheme.

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3,856 citations

Additional excerpts

...In most item recognition studies, "no" responses are almost as fast as "yes" responses, and sometimes, this finding has provided problems for certain models (see Collins & Quillian, 1970; Smith, Shoben, & Rips, 1974)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

The language-as-fixed-effect fallacy: A critique of language statistics in psychological research.

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Herbert H. Clark¹•Institutions (1)

Stanford University¹

01 Aug 1973-Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

TL;DR: The authors showed that the language-as-fixed-effect fallacy can be avoided by doing the right statistics, selecting the appropriate design, and sampling by systematic procedures, or by proceeding according to the so-called method of single cases.

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2,149 citations

Cites background from "Does category size affect categoriz..."

...To give an example, Collins and Quillian (1969) were interested in the verification of sentences with various subject-predicate (S-P) relations, sentences such as A canary is a bird, A canary can sing, and so on....
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...Collins and Quillian (1969), for example, proposed that for such word-triples as rubystone-solid it is easier to verify A ruby is a stone than A ruby is a solid....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Structure and process in semantic memory: A featural model for semantic decisions.

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Edward E. Smith¹, Edward J. Shoben, Lance J. Rips•Institutions (1)

Stanford University¹

01 May 1974-Psychological Review

1,263 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

An overview of KRL, a Knowledge Representation Language

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Daniel G. Bobrow¹, Terry Winograd²•Institutions (2)

PARC¹, Stanford University²

01 Nov 1976-Cognitive Science

TL;DR: KRL is an attempt to integrate procedural knowledge with a broad base of declarative forms to give flexibility in associating procedures with specific pieces of knowledge, and to control the relative accessibility of different facts and descriptions.

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933 citations

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References

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Book•

The Teacher's Word Book of 30, 000 Words

[...]

Edward L. Thorndike, Irving Lorge

16 Oct 2018

2,737 citations

Book•

Retrieval time from semantic memory

[...]

Allan Collins, M. Ross Quillian

31 Oct 1995

TL;DR: The results of a true-false reaction-time task were found to support the hypothesis about memory organization that a canary is a bird and birds can fly.

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Abstract: To ascertain the truth of a sentence such as “A canary can fly,” people utilize long-term memory. Consider two possible organizations of this memory. First, people might store with each kind of bird that flies (e.g., canary) the fact that it can fly. Then they could retrieve this fact directly to decide the sentence is true. An alternative organization would be to store only the generalization that birds can fly, and to infer that “A canary can fly” from the stored information that a canary is a bird and birds can fly. The latter organization is much more economical in terms of storage space but should require longer retrieval times when such inferences are necessary. The results of a true-false reaction-time task were found to support the latter hypothesis about memory organization.

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2,671 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Retrieval time from semantic memory

[...]

Allan Collins¹, M. Ross Quillian¹•Institutions (1)

BBN Technologies¹

01 Apr 1969-Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

TL;DR: In this paper, two possible organizations of long-term memory were proposed: the first one is to store only the generalization that birds can fly, and the second is to infer that a canary is a bird from the stored information that canary can fly.

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2,468 citations

Book•

Roget's International Thesaurus

[...]

Robert L. Chapman

01 Sep 1977

TL;DR: This fifth edition brings Roget's original category concept towards the 21st century, including 31 entirely new categories, such as computers, fitness and exercise, and all kinds of sport.

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Abstract: This thesaurus is based on the system devised by Peter Roget for his original thesaurus of 1852. Words and phrases are arranged according to the ideas or concepts that they express within an overall system of categories and classes. Thus the user can start from an idea and explore different ways to express it. This fifth edition brings Roget's original category concept towards the 21st century. 325,000 words and phrases are grouped by concept into 1073 categories with all synonyms, antonyms and related words presented together for quick and easy reference. The text has been fully revised and expanded, including 31 entirely new categories, such as computers, fitness and exercise, and all kinds of sport. The whole range of language from archaisms to the latest slang (labelled) is included.

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232 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Facilitating retrieval from semantic memory: The effect of repeating part of an inference

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Allan Collins¹, M. Ross Quillian¹•Institutions (1)

BBN Technologies¹

01 Jan 1970-Acta Psychologica

TL;DR: In this study, eight RT difference predictions were made for various kinds of sentence pairs, and all eight of these predictions held.

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143 citations