Prof. W. Frawley

Examination #2

November 12, 1997

Due November 19, 1997

All examinations must be typed.

Do not use the same evidence and examples in different questions.

Be specific. Focused answers are better than general ones.

1. Answer both of the following:

A. What kinds of representations and processes are characteristic of spatial knowledge? What are the elemental units? How does the domain "divide the labor"? What is the difference between low-level processing and high-level recognition in this domain?

B. Describe three principles of cognitive science, and show how the mental organization of language adheres to those principles. Your linguistic illustrations must draw on at least two different modules of language.

2. Answer one of the following:

A. Outline the differences between Piaget and Baillargeon on knowledge development in general and spatial knowledge development in particular.

B. What are the essential properties of face knowledge? How do these properties converge with/diverge from those needed for spatial knowledge? How is the tension between fuzzy/prototype and deterministic categories played out in face knowledge?

C. Consider the following problem. Rats were trained to look for buried food in the floor at the corners of a rectangular room. The corners of this room had panels attached, and each panel was supplemented with sensory information, such as texture, color, smell. Rats were trained to locate the buried food and then put in a replica, with no food, to see where they would dig. When the geometry of the room was rotated 180 degrees, rats performed at chance. That is, they searched as often in front of sensory loaded panels where they never learned to find food as in front of panels where they had previously learned to find food. But when the panel in front of the expected locale of the food and its diagonal were switched, the rats' performance was unaffected. How do the findings relate to what you have learned about spatial knowledge and the principles of cognitive science?