Mapping the Structure of Semantic Memory

Autor/inn/en	Morais, Ana Sofia; Olsson, Henrik; Schooler, Lael J.
Titel	Mapping the Structure of Semantic Memory
Quelle	In: Cognitive Science, 37 (2013) 1, S.125-145 (21 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0364-0213
DOI	10.1111/cogs.12013
Schlagwörter	Memory; Semantics; Interviews; Association (Psychology); Associative Learning; Networks; Word Recognition; Undergraduate Students; Foreign Countries; Cues; Sampling; Germany + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Gedächtnis; Semantik; Interviewing; Interviewtechnik; Assoziation; Worterkennung; Ausland; Stichwort; Deutschland
Abstract	Aggregating snippets from the semantic memories of many individuals may not yield a good map of an individual's semantic memory. The authors analyze the structure of semantic networks that they sampled from individuals through a new snowball sampling paradigm during approximately 6 weeks of 1-hr daily sessions. The semantic networks of individuals have a small-world structure with short distances between words and high clustering. The distribution of links follows a power law truncated by an exponential cutoff, meaning that most words are poorly connected and a minority of words has a high, although bounded, number of connections. Existing aggregate networks mirror the individual link distributions, and so they are not scale-free, as has been previously assumed; still, there are properties of individual structure that the aggregate networks do not reflect. A simulation of the new sampling process suggests that it can uncover the true structure of an individual's semantic memory. (Contains 4 tables, 2 figures, and 3 notes.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10