Categorization (8)

Question 1

What is concept formation?

Answer 1

Induction of concepts by dividing items into classes based on shared properties (aka categorization)

Question 2

Concepts can be _____________, meaning they don’t have necessary, specific or sufficient features, such as a game.

Answer 2

Concepts can be polymorphic

Question 3

What are the 3 main types of concepts?

Answer 3

basic level concepts
superordinate concepts
abstract level concepts

Question 4

Basic level concepts are ____________________________________.
Give an example

Answer 4

basic level - based on perceptual similarity
i.e. birds, flowers

Question 5

Superordinate concepts are groups of __________________________________
Give an example

Answer 5

groups of concepts not based on perceptual similarity
politicians, athletes

Question 6

Abstract concepts do not refer to ___________ _____________, but to some ___________, ____________ or ________

Answer 6

not refer to individual entity but to a property, relation or state

Question 7

Bhatt et al 1988 trained pigeons to do what? How well was their response performance?

Answer 7

Pigeons respond to different key when shown exemplar from a category
Also transferred ability to novel stimuli of the same category
80% performance for category exemplars
60% for novel category stimuli

Question 8

What are the two main theories of basic level concept formation?

Answer 8

exemplar theory
prototype theory

Question 9

Exemplar theory says that in basic concept formation subjects do what?

Answer 9

Learn about every example/instance independently
we then classify novel experiences by their similarity to example stimuli

Question 10

Prototype theory says that subjects store an _________ _________ corresponding to the _______ _________/ ____ _________of training examples

Answer 10

store an abstract concept corresponding to central tendency/ key features of training examples

Question 11

What do exemplar theory and prototype theory differently suggest about novel item classification?

Answer 11

exemplar theory would suggest that novel item classification always harder than familiar item classification
whereas
prototype theory suggests that classification of novel items may be better than familiar items if the novel item is closer to or is the prototype

Question 12

The Bhatt et al pigeon study showed support for which theory?
A prototype theory
B exemplar theory
C Both theories
D Neither theory

Answer 12

B exemplar theory

Question 13

Homa et al found evidence supporting ____________ theory in humans, where humans categorize the _________ more accurate than _________ stimuli

Answer 13

Homa et al supported prototype theory - humans categorize the prototype more accurately than training stimuli

Question 14

Aydin and Pearce (1944) found evidence for __________ theory in animals, where birds responded more to the __________ _________ than any of the ________ _________.

Answer 14

evidence for prototype theory
birds responded more to positive prototype than any of the positve exemplars, despite never seeing the positive prototype

Question 15

In the Aydin and Pearce 1944 prototype study, positive prototypes were assigned the letters _ _ _, whereas negative prototypes were assigned the letters _ _ _

Answer 15

positive prototypes assigned A B C , where one letter represents a block
negative prototypes were assigned D E F, where one letter represents a block

Question 16

How were Positive/ negative exemplar training stimuli created in the Aydin and Pearce 1944 prototype study?

Answer 16

By swapping one letter block from the opposite prototype - disorting

Question 17

Whittlesea (1987), studied catgeorisation in humans.
Prototype theory would predict that all lists should be ______________ __ ____ ______ difficulty , whereas exemplar theory would predict that _____ __ should be easiest to categorise.
Which theory was correct

Answer 17

Prototype theory predicts all lists categorised to same degree of difficulty
Exemplar theory - list 1 categorised easiest. Less similar lists categorised slower this theory was correct

Question 18

True or false, humans and animals both show evidence for the prototype theory and the exemplar theory?

Answer 18

True

Question 19

What does feature theory suggest? How does this differ from exemplar theory?

Answer 19

Exemplar theory suggests that we store the whole exemplar
whereas feature theory suggests that we store the component features of each exemplar

Question 20

The feature theory is an improved ___________ ______, but can also explain _________ ______ findings.

Answer 20

Improved exemplar theory
can also explain prototype theory findings

Question 21

It is argued that categories may from by a process of _____________ _________, where features of a category are ________ with the category label.

Answer 21

Category formation may arise due to associative learning
features of category associated with category label

Question 22

Blocking can occur in category association under what conditions?

Answer 22

If pairing a new feature of a category in presence of an existing feature, we learn less about the new feature

Question 23

In Shanks (1990) experiment he had participants predict what?

Answer 23

Predict a disease based on the symptoms

Question 24

In Shanks (1990) experiment, which disease was easier to predict from headaches, and why?

Answer 24

Neuroscience Allergy easier to predict as more surprising

Question 25

Wasserman et al (1992) showed that birds can form ___________ categories, by pairing ________ and ______ in the same response category despite not sharing _________ similarity

Answer 25

birds formed superordinate categories by pairing people and chairs in same response category despite no perceptual similarity

Question 26

In terms of abstract-level concepts, what technique is uses to study in animals, and how would it work with colours?

Answer 26

Match to sample technique
Birds given sample image, red or green, must peck key corresponding to comparison image of the same colour sample

Question 27

Using the same-different MTS technique what did birds struggle with?

Answer 27

transferring skill to different colours

Question 28

Hugart et al 1995 provided some evidence birds could ___________ their abstract concepts

Answer 28

some evidence of generalization/transfer of abstract evidence

Question 29

Overall there is ________ evidence that animals form abstract concepts

A limited
B no
C extensive
D controversial

Answer 29

A limited