Categorization and concept formation

Question 1

What is a concept?

Answer 1

A mental representation of something that is based on the sharing of common properties in a class.

Question 2

What is concept formation and categorization?

Answer 2

The induction of concepts that divide items into classes.

Question 3

What are the 3 types of concepts?

Answer 3

1. Basic level concept
2. Superordinate concept
3. Abstract concept

Question 4

Define basic level concept.

Answer 4

A concept based on similarity of perceptual qualities e.g bird,flower.

Question 5

Define superordinate concept.

Answer 5

Groups of basic level concepts; not based on perceptual similarity e.g politician, tools.

Question 6

Define abstract concept.

Answer 6

A concept that doesn’t refer to individual entity but to some property, relation or state e.g truth, love.

Question 7

Can animals form basic level concepts? Describe a study that investigates this.

Answer 7

Bhatt, Wasserman, Reynolds & Knauss, 1988.

Studied pigeons in a chamber where they were shown pictures of flowers, cars, people and chairs. Birds learned to peck the corresponding response keys when shown pictures.

They were then tested on new exemplars and they were able to respond correctly.

This suggests that the birds had formed a “concept”.

Question 8

In Bhatt et al study into basic level concept formation, what suggested that the pigeons hadn’t formed concepts in the same way humans do?

Answer 8

The performance on the training stimuli was more accurate( 80%) than with the novel stimuli (60%).

Question 9

Describe the Exemplar theory of basic level of concept formation?

Answer 9

It states that we learn and store every exemplar independently. With a novel exemplar we compare how similar it is to the stored exemplars.

Question 10

Define the Prototype theory of basic level of concept formation?

Answer 10

It states that we can’t possibly store every exemplar. Instead we store prototypes corresponding to central tendency of the training exemplars.
With novel stimuli we compare how similar it is to prototype that you have never seen.

Question 11

Which theory of basic level concept formation predicts that we can perform better with novel exemplars than trained exemplars?

Answer 11

Prototype theory

Question 12

Which theory of basic level concept formation states that we will always perform better with exemplars that we’ve seen?

Answer 12

Exemplar theory.

Question 13

Humans show the prototype effect ( e.g Homa et al, 1981) whereas animals show the …

Answer 13

exemplar effect.

Question 14

Aydin & Pearce, 1994 investigated the prototype effect in pigeons and they found that..

Answer 14

there is evidence of a kind of prototype effect in animals.

Question 15

What is difference between Exemplar theory and Feature theory?

Answer 15

They both say that you store something about the stimuli.

However, exemplar theory says that what you store is the whole stimulus whereas feature theory says you store features and classify based on stored features.

Question 16

Another theory of categorisation involves what form of conditioning?

Answer 16

classical conditioning

Question 17

In Aydin & Pierce’s study, how were the training patterns made?

Answer 17

The training patterns were made from the positive(ABC) and negative(DEF) prototypes that the pigeons had never seen before. The patterns were always mostly positive or mostly negative.

Question 18

In Aydin & Pierce’s study what did the birds associate the positive training patterns with?

Answer 18

Food because they were always paired with food.

Question 19

If prototype theory were correct, Aydin & Pierce would have found what?

Answer 19

They would have found that the birds were more accurate with the prototype they have never seen before. In other words they should have pecked more at the positive prototypes & less at the negative prototypes never seen before.

Question 20

What is the variation of exemplar theory that can explain the prototype effect?

Answer 20

The Feature theory

Question 21

Why did the birds peck more at the positive prototype than other members of the positive category in Aydin & Pierce’s experiment?

Answer 21

The components of the positive prototype appeared in more food trials than non food trials compared to the positive trained stimulus.

Question 22

In Shank’s experiment, what were the findings?

Answer 22

Human ppts associated a headache(target symptom) with NA( the unfamiliar disease) more than the flu because they learnt to associate the flu with a runny nose.

Question 23

Superordinate categories have members that are not necessarily physically similar to each other but…

Answer 23

share a common associate. e.g knife, fork, spoon

Question 24

Wasserman, De Volder & Coppage, (1992) investigated superordinate level concept formation in animals and found what?

Answer 24

They found that animals do seem to have the ability to form a superordinate category because they treated people and chairs as equivalent because both were paired with the same response in the first phase of training.

Question 25

Who argued that Wasserman’s findings wasn’t an example of categorization but simple associative learning & what humans do is much more complicated?

Answer 25

Pearce (1997)

Question 26

Which type of concept formation has been studied the least in animals?

Answer 26

Abstract concepts

Question 27

How is abstract concept formation usually studied in animals?

Answer 27

The same/different concept is most commonly studied and it is usually studied using a match-to-sample technique (MTS).

Question 28

Describe the match-to-sample technique.

Answer 28

Birds are shown a sample that is red for example and given a choice of red and green. They must peck the same colour as the sample. The sample colour changes on the next trial.

Question 29

Who found that when pigeons were shown more complex stimuli and were given a choice of a red(same) or green(different) key, they performed well above chance?

Answer 29

Wasserman, Hugart, Kirkpatrick-Steger, 1995