7. Concepts and Categorization

Question 1

What is a concept

Answer 1

Mental representation of some object, event, or pattern + stores knowledge relevant to it

allows us to classify stuff

Question 2

What is a category

Answer 2

Class of similar things that share:
1. an essential core
or
2. Similarity in perceptual, biological, or functional properties

Question 3

What are 5 theoretical views of the nature of concepts

Answer 3

classical view
prototype view
exemplar view
schemata view
knowledge based view

Question 4

What are 4 functions of categorization

Answer 4

1. Understand individual cases we have not seen before and make inferences on them
2. Reduces complexity of the environment
3. Requires less learning and memorization
4. Guides the appropriate action (etc. dog vs. wolf)

Question 5

What are concepts in the Classical View?

Answer 5

• membership is determined by a set of defining characteristics
• defining properties are NECESSARY and SUFFICIENT

ie. a set of features is enough to classify anything as an instance of a concept

Question 6

What are the assumptions of the classical view of concepts

Answer 6

• concepts are not representations of specific examples, but as lists of features
• membership is clear cut
• there is no better or worse examples of a category

Question 7

What are some problems with the classical view of concepts

Answer 7

• no defining features for categories (etc. games)
• defining features do not always fit
• no typicality (graded membership)

Question 8

What are concepts in the Prototype view?

Answer 8

There is an idealized representation of a class of objects
- includes features that are typical (averaged over past experiences of category members)

Question 9

What is the family resemblance structure of concepts

Answer 9

Each member has a number of features that it shares with others

The more commonly shared features, the more typical a member is

police + doctor experiment

Question 10

What are some advantages of prototype view of concepts

Answer 10

• explains why people have a hard time defining concepts (strict definitions do not exist)
• explains how members in a category may seem more typical than others

Question 11

What are some problems with the prototype view of concepts

Answer 11

• There are no clear cut boundaries for category membership
• Typicality of an instance can depend on context (not fixed)

Question 12

What are 2 views of categorization that have to do with the abstraction of information

Answer 12

Classical view and Prototype view

Question 13

What are concepts in the Exemplar view?

Answer 13

• concepts include actual representations of real instances we’ve experienced in the past
• categorization based on comparison to previously stored instances (exemplars)
• assumes no defining characteristics with specific categories

Question 14

Why might concepts be hard to categorize in the exemplar view vs. prototype view

Answer 14

exemplar view:
to-be categorized instance is similar to exemplars from many different categories

prototype view:
to-be categorized instance shares many features with multiple categories

Question 15

Explain the typicality effect in the exemplar view vs prototype view

Answer 15

Exemplar view:
Typical instances are more likely to be stored than less typical instances

Prototype view:
More overlap in features with the prototype allows someone to respond faster to it

Question 16

What are some problems with the exemplar views

Answer 16

unconstrained
- hard to define where category boundaries are and why some objects/instances are stored as exemplars and others aren’t
- requires storage of a lot of exemplars

Question 17

What are concepts in the Schemata view?

Answer 17

• Concepts are a form of schemata
• Schemata: frameworks of knowledge that have roles, slots, variables

Question 18

What are problems with the schemata view

Answer 18

• ill defined and cannot be empirically tested

Question 19

What are concepts in the Knowledge based view?

Answer 19

• Category only becomes meaningful once you know the purpose of the category
• Individuality of categorization (depends on individual’s purpose for categorization)

Question 20

What limitation of prototype and exemplar view does the knowledge based view address

Answer 20

• did not explain how categories are formed
• in a knowledge based view, the purpose of the category is to define what the category membership is

Question 21

What does Rosch’s experiment, where participants were asked to respond to various items from same + different categories, tell us about categorization

Answer 21

Categorization is graded; may be based on prototypes or examples rather than a set of defining features

Experiment: asked participants to list common characteristics of instances of different categories (etc. chair, table from furniture) + compared the overlap

Question 22

What are Concept Attainment strategies as found by Bruner and colleagues

Answer 22

Simultaneous scanning
Successive scanning

Question 23

What is Simultaneous scanning

Answer 23

• testing multiple hypotheses at the same time
• heavy demands on working memory

Question 24

What is Successive scanning

Answer 24

• testing one hypothesis at a time
• slow but less demand on working memory

Question 25

What is Conservative focusing

Answer 25

• focuses more on the card attributes
• ie. test altering an attribute of what you already know to be in a category
• low demands on working memory

however, does not guarantee a solution

Question 26

What is the result of Segar’s functional brain imaging study for classifying paintings?

Answer 26

As learning progresses, regions of the left hemisphere begin to show activity, may be due to the formation and application of rules

Question 27

Explain basic vs superordinate vs subordinate levels of categorization

Answer 27

Basic: contains members that are maximally similar to each other (etc. guitar, piano)
- psychologically fundamental

Superordinate: contains members that are dissimilar in several aspects (etc. musical instruments)

Subordinate: Harder to distinguish (etc. grand piano, upright piano)

Question 28

What does Allen and Brook’s experiment (Builders and Diggers) show about exemplars in categorization

Answer 28

Experiment:
- participants are given a rule to classify
- positive match: follows rule and physical characteristics
- negative match: follows rule but not physical characteristics

participants often made errors for negative matches -> thought to be due to similarity with previous exemplars in memory

Question 29

What is the explanation based category approach to concepts? it is a combination of the schema and knowledge-based view

Answer 29

classification based on meaningful relationships
specifically, with respect to deeper knowledge-derived information vs. superficial perceptual information

Question 30

what are nominal concepts

Answer 30

concepts that have precise definitions

Question 31

What parts of the brain are associated with categorization

Answer 31

frontal + parietal cortices

basal ganglia: relay center of the brain
- responsible for further processing visual stimuli, selecting appropriate action, and processing of feedback to promote learning

Question 32

What is non-analytic concept formation/implicit learning

Answer 32

• belief that the idea of abstracting rules + applying it to new instances is done much of the time in ordinary cognition

Question 33

How are scripts used

Answer 33

• description level of scripts were the same
• participants “recalled” info not in the story but was in the script

Question 34

What is the Psychological Essentialism framework

Answer 34

• assumes that everything has underlying natures that make the, what they are
  knowledge in a category differs by expertise

Question 35

What are natural-kind concepts

Answer 35

things that naturally occur in the environment