Categories Flashcards
The necessary features that are essential to a category.
Defining Features
The idea that categories are defined in terms of the relative similarity of members to each other, and their relative dissimilarity to members of other categories.
Family Resemblance
Exemplars that are more average or normal for a given category are likely to be listed first when people are asked to name exemplars of that category, and are more rapidly verified as category members.
Typicality Effects
An idealized exemplar or model of a category abstracted from individual stimuli and stored in memory as a representation of that category.
Prototype
The process of creating a prototype or other summary representation of a category from exposure to specific exemplars of the category.
Abstraction
A representation of a category that uses a slot-filler structure to store information about what type of object it is, what parts it has, and so on.
Schema
Elements of a schema that represent general features or components as variables that can be instantiated differently by different exemplars (e.g.,
make, model, and year in our “car” schema).
Slots
Elements of a schema representation corresponding to specific values of abstract slots or attributes.
Filler
An expected value of a particular attribute (slot) within the schema for a given category, e.g., the expected color of elephants is gray.
Default
Inferring a property is true of a given category because it is true of its superordinate category.
Property Inheritance
A more general or abstract level of classification, e.g., animal, plant, furniture.
Superordinate Level
A more specific level of classification, e.g., beagle, maple, office chair.
Subordinate Level
An intermediate (and generally preferred) level of classification, e.g., dog, tree, chair.
Basic Level
