1. Meaning-Based Knowledge Representations John B. Black Teachers College Columbia University

2. Propositions as Units of Declarative Knowledge and Memory Proposition = Relations + Entities The clerk sold the customer the book proposition notation: sold(clerk, book, customer) The book was good. proposition notation: good(book) The boy went home. proposition notation: Went(boy, home)

3. Multi-Proposition Sentence The old Professor gave a boring lecture gave(Professor,Lecture,students) note: students an inference old(Professor) boring(lecture

4. Episodic and Semantic Memory Episodic Memory is Memory for Episodes in your life – what we have been talking about Word list experiment is example Also naturally ocuring events (e.g., 9/11) Semantic Memory is Memory for Your Knowledge about the World Lexical Knowledge about Words Object Schemas (e.g., room schema) Event Schemas (e.g., scripts)

5. Memory for Scripts Scripts are schemas that contain actions, roles for actors, and props that occur in situations by convention If ask group of people what happens in one of these situations there is a lot of agreement (doesn’t have to be exact) When people read or see some of the pieces of a script they activate the rest and it all goes into an episodic memory for event

6. Example Empirical Script VISITING A DOCTOR Enter office CHECK IN WITH RECEPTIONIST SIT DOWN Wait Look at other people READ MAGAZINE Name called Follow nurse Enter exam room Undress Sit on table Talk to nurse NURSE TESTS Wait Doctor enters Doctor greets Talk to doctor about problem Doctor asks questions DOCTOR EXAMINES Get dressed Get medicine Make another appointment LEAVE OFFICE

7. Example Story from Study The Doctor John was feeling bad today so he decided to go see the family doctor. He checked in with the doctor’s receptionist, and then looked through several medical magazines that were on the table by his chair. Finally the nurse came and asked him to take off his clothes. The doctor was very nice to him. He eventually prescribed some pills for John. Then John left the doctor’s oftice and headed home.

8. Experimental Results In both recall and recognition, people misremembered missing script items as having been in text – almost at same level as actually stated items Reading time pauses when there is a script gap Story statements that blocked script actions were remembered best, and ones that were irrelevant remembered least

9. Scripts are Good Autobiographical Memory Cues Memory Cues (best to worse) remember when you went to a restaurant (script activity cue) remember when you paid for something (positive action cue) remember when you didn’t get what you wanted (negative action cue) remember when you were impatient (affect cue)

10. Script Activity vs Action Cues Went to a restaurant (script activity cue) Got what you wanted (action cue) cued a memory faster than Got what you wanted Went to a restaurant and negative or failure actions were slowest of all: Went to a restaurant. Didn’t get what you wanted.

11. Encoding Specificity Principle Memory are encoded with specific context and knowledge used to process Restoring that context aids in memory retrieval Here scripts were the context processed with so they are good cues When trying to remember something from past, then of what activity (e.g., high school classmate name study)