Question

Imagine that you mistakenly believe that Marie Antoinette was the queen of Austria. You learn later that she was the queen of France. How will this adjustment in knowledge be represented in a PDP model?

a. the connection between Marie Antoinette and Austria will immediately be broken, and a new connection with France will be immediately created
b. the connection between Austria and France will be broken
c. the connection between Marie Antoinette and France will become stronger, overriding the connection between Marie Antionette and Austria
d. the connection between Marie Antoinette and Austria will become weaker, while the connection between Marie Antoinette and France will become stronger

Answer 1

The adjustment in knowledge that Marie Antoinette was the queen of France, not Austria, in a PDP model would involve weakening the connection with Austria and strengthening the connection with France.

Step-by-step explanation:

The computational models are called parallel distributed processing (PDP) models because memories are stored and retrieved in a system consisting of a large number of simple computational elements, all working at the same time andall contributing to the outcome.

When you learn that Marie Antoinette was the queen of France rather than the queen of Austria, according to a Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) model of knowledge and learning, the adjustment in your knowledge would be represented by the decrease in strength of the connection between Marie Antoinette and Austria, and an increase in the strength of the connection between Marie Antoinette and France.

This reflects the process of learning and unlearning within the neural network-like structures that PDP models suggest our brains use to store and process information. The incorrect information gets corrected by strengthening new, accurate connections while weakening the incorrect ones.