Categories and Concepts

Question 1

What are the three types of categorization

Answer 1

1) classification: ability to classify dissimilar objects together in the same group
- classifying green, yellow and red apples
2) understanding: ability to evaluate a situation and act appropriately based on prior experience
- see 2 people arguing –> don’t need to butt in
3) communication: ability to describe complex ideas or objects using a single label
- furniture, sport

Question 2

What is the language acquisition device

Answer 2

innate (automatic) mechanism - only in humans that helps language to develop rapidly according to universal rules

Question 3

Illusion of the expert

Answer 3

feeling that a task must be simple for you
- simple categories leaves us susceptible to the illusion of the expert (rather than complex)

Question 4

What is prototype theory

Answer 4

categorization of objects by comparing them to an internal “best” representation of a given category
- personal average representation of all person experiences
- new objects compared to the average representation in protorype theory

Question 5

what can’t prototype theory explain

Answer 5

why internal representations change over time
- new representations should be less likely to shift prototypes
- prototypes are inconsistent across time

Question 6

Which group is categorized more easily and quickly in prototype theory

Answer 6

more typical category members that are closer to the prototype than atypical prototype

Question 7

What is exemplar theory

Answer 7

we categorize objects by comparing them to every previously stored experience in a given category
- remembering every dog you’ve ever met
- many more robin examples in your lifetime than other birds
- diagnosis influenced by more recent experience (exemplar theory) –> any increase in relevant example increse categorization performance
- every encounter with category is added to new, own exemplar

Question 8

Which theory can explain why a single encounter changes categorization pattern

Answer 8

exemplar

Question 9

what can children over 3 understand in terms of categorization

Answer 9

understand and generalize categories
understand hypothetical categorizations
understanding of innate properties of a category (can change the nature of an object, but not an animal)

Question 10

What can baboons clasify

Answer 10

food and non foods
same or different

• animal categorization may not necessarily demonstrate language ability
• baboons can categorize abstract and simple categories

Question 11

Family Resemblance

Answer 11

category with no single defining feature
but share common features that link together large subsets of this category

Question 12

Anomia

Answer 12

individual loses ability to name common objects
can still understand their function

Question 13

Object agnosia

Answer 13

cannot recognize objects despite having perfect vision

Question 14

superordinate level

Answer 14

general
-high chance of accuracy
- low predictive power

Question 15

basic level

Answer 15

decent predictive power
decent accuracy

Question 16

subordinate level

Answer 16

low chance for accuracy

Question 17

Graded membership

Answer 17

some category members are more representative of category than others

Question 18

borderline members

Answer 18

just barely considered a member of the category

Question 19

Essentialism

Answer 19

belief that members of a category have deep underlying properties that cause them to be in that category regardless of any alterations