Chapter 6: Concepts, Categories, and Essences

Question 1

How would you describe a perceptual category? Can you provide an example?

Answer 1

An implicit classification of perceptual stimuli into discrete sets, despite a lack of physical discontinuity in the stimulus array.

Ex. Colours

Question 2

What does it mean for a person to have mature categorization abilities? In the case where these abilities are not mature, what are they called?

Answer 2

1) Can include and exclude objects into a category.
2) Membership in one category disqualifies from another.
3) Categories are hierarchical.

Piaget called immature categories, complexes.

Question 3

When do children begin to distinguish between artifacts and natural-kind categories? When does this reach an adult level?

Answer 3

Four years when they begin to draw a distinction.

Eight years when the sense is adult-like.

Question 4

What are natural-kind categories rich in facilitating?

Answer 4

Inferences.

Question 5

What do developmental psychologists consider a category?

Answer 5

A psychologically represented grouping of entities.

Question 6

What do neuroimaging studies of brain damage teach us about the nature of categorization

Answer 6

“Some brain areas were more in use while the participant thought about tools, while other areas were more in use while the participant thought about animals. This separation again provides evidence of dedicated brain regions for different concepts.”

Question 7

What is a classic category? Can you think of some pieces of evidence that counter it?

Answer 7

Classic Category: “A category that can be defined by a list of necessary and sufficient features.”

Evidence against

1) Some animals are a better representation of a category than others. Ex. robin vs. penguin.
2) There are ambiguous circumstances when one cannot classify an object. Ex. is an olive a fruit or vegetable.
3) Not always obvious what the features are.

Question 8

What are the central organizing forces behind most types of concepts? And what metaphor does Rutherford find “useful”?

Answer 8

“…explanatory theories are the central organizing force in at least some domains of knowledge— probably for the natural-kinds categories more than for artificial categories…”

“The child as a theoretician may be a useful metaphor: You can imagine a child developing theories and testing hypotheses in an attempt to explain the world around them.”

Question 9

Children use thematic and taxonomic associations at different points in language development. When might a child use each?

Answer 9

Thematic: Used for words and domains that the child is knowledgeable about.

Taxonomic: Used when a child is learning a new word. They will draw taxonomic inferences versus thematic.

Ex. If a new object is called a Bumbo nose, the child is more likely to draw context from another, different looking nose versus kleenex. But only so long as the nose is novel.

Question 10

When do children start using basic categories (earliest evidence)?

Answer 10

Three months.

Question 11

Can you provide at least one piece of evidence against an associationist claim for child categorization?

Answer 11

“If a child is taught that a bird has a spleen, she might be happy to say that a new, different bird has a spleen but hesitate to say that a new animal also has a spleen.”

This is not based upon perceptual, visual similarity, but instead an intuitive understanding of categorical membership.

Question 12

By the age of 3, children are more likely to do these two things pertaining to basic level categories.

Answer 12

1) More likely to make within-category inferences.

Ex. “If a child is taught that a bird has a spleen, she might be happy to say that a new, different bird has a spleen but hesitate to say that a new animal also has a spleen.”

2) More likely to make basic to subordinate inferences than vice versa.

Question 13

What is the function of categorization? And what is it not? Why?

Answer 13

“Creating a category and then knowing that a particular object belongs in that category allows us to make inferences and thus provides a rich source of information regarding things that we are encountering for the first time.”

The function is not to save cognitive space, as, technically speaking, humans could have adapted to remember a near unlimited amount of precise information, but they did not.

Question 14

How did Piaget explain those children who do not act in accordance with the predictions of the classical categorization theory?

Answer 14

He claimed that these children had not yet formed mature categorization abilities.

Question 15

What is the most likely hierarchical inference that a child will make (think between superordinate, basic, or subordinate)?

Answer 15

From a basic category to a subordinate category.

Question 16

How are concepts different from categories?

Answer 16

Concepts are functional and can be simply articulated (ex. dog).

Categories can get much more abstract.

Question 17

Piaget got some things wrong about categorization. What are the two major issues that modern theorists have pointed out with his methodology?

Answer 17

1) Piaget encouraged children to make free associations, which promotes thematic connections; modern theorists , instead, use transformative and inductive methods, which measures more specific inferences within a category.
2) Piaget studied classic categories that do not support inference, and are strictly nominal. Conversely, modern psychologists conduct research using artifacts and natural-kind categories, which do, instead, allow inferences to be drawn.

Piaget assumed that all categories were the same, and in so doing missed out on the inferential capabilities of natural-kind categories.

Question 18

In what way are concepts subject to instinct blindness?

Answer 18

“Our failure to appreciate the uniformity and the usefulness of our concepts is an example of what Cosmides and Tooby call instinct blindness”

Question 19

What occurs inside an induction method study? And what does it test?

Answer 19

Asks a child to generalize a learned fact to other animals in a set. This method tests natural-kind categorization.

Question 20

What did the Wug and Gillie experiment teach us?

Answer 20

That categories form based upon knowledge of function.

Question 21

What was the purpose of Piaget’s class-inclusion experiments. What did he end up finding?

Answer 21

“…children were tested to see if they would include a subset in a broader grouping.”

Ex. You might ask, you have 7 apples and 4 oranges, do you have more apples or fruit?

“Piaget’s class-inclusion experiments led him to conclude that children were unable to reason about subordinate
and superordinate classes.”

Question 22

What is a universal distinction that children draw between animals?

Answer 22

Predators and prey.

Question 23

When do children develop a concept of mammal?

Answer 23

3 1/2 months.

Question 24

When do children begin using category-based inferences?Explain when children make category-based inferences, and when they make perceptual inferences.

Answer 24

2 1/2 years.

Anything pertaining to function, a child will attribute categorically. Ex. do their legs get cold at night.

Perceptual inferences are only drawn when the inference pertains to sensory inform, such as an animals weight.

Question 25

How did Piaget test children’s categorization ability? From this he derived what?

Answer 25

Using free association Piaget determined that children are perceptually bound. I.e. when in the pre-operational and concrete operational stages children categorize based on visual stimuli.