Chapter 8

Question 1

Attributes of a concept

Answer 1

The qualities a concept has in common with other instances of the concept. Like the pages, print, cover that a book has.

Question 2

Values of those attributes

Answer 2

For a book it would be the type of qualities a concept has, like the size of the pages, colour of print, type of cover (hard or paperback), etc.

Question 3

Conjunctive concept

Answer 3

One defined by a simple conjunction of two or more attributes, like a card with “black” and “square” on it. That is a conjunctive concept. A and B.

Question 4

Disjunctive concept

Answer 4

A concept defined by two or more possible sets of attributes, like Canadian citizenship. There are three ways of acquiring it: being born here, being born abroad to a Canadian, or by becoming a naturalized citizen. Or a baseball strike can be defined as a pitch in the strike zone or when a batter swings and misses. This concept is more complex. A or B.

Question 5

Relational concept

Answer 5

The relationship between attributes determines the class to which an event will be assigned. Concept of marriage is a relationship between two people. Or sister, a girl in relation to another person who has the same parents.

Question 6

Criterial attribute

Answer 6

An attribute that is required in order for something to qualify as an instance of a concept.

Question 7

Abstraction

Answer 7

Taking away non-recurring attributes and including recurring attributes. This is how you can determine which attributes form a concept, by eliminating the ones that don’t recur in the positive instances.

Question 8

Positive vs. negative instance

Answer 8

Positive is when the instance is a particular concept; negative instance is when the instance isn’t; when it doesn’t contain the right attributes.

Question 9

Selection task

Answer 9

A concept formation task in which the participant selects instances from those presented by the experimenter.

Question 10

Conservative focusing

Answer 10

A concept formation strategy of actively formulating hypotheses and selecting instances to see if your hypotheses are correct by focusing on one attribute at a time and by selecting instances that vary only in that one attribute.

Question 11

Focus gambling

Answer 11

The concept formation strategy of selecting instances that vary from the first positive instance in more than one attribute.

Question 12

Simultaneous scanning

Answer 12

The concept formation strategy of keeping in mind all possible hypotheses and trying to eliminate as many as possible with each instance selection.

Question 13

Successive scanning

Answer 13

The concept formation strategy of formulating a single hypothesis and testing it by selecting instances until the correct hypothesis emerges.

Question 14

Reception task

Answer 14

A concept formation task in which the instances presented to the participant are chosen by the experimenter.

Question 15

Wholist strategy

Answer 15

A concept formation strategy, used in reception tasks, in which you initially hypothesize that all attributes are members of the concept.

Question 16

Partist strategy

Answer 16

A concept formation strategy, used in reception tasks, in which you initially hypothesize that only some attributes are members of the concept.

Question 17

Finite grammar state

Answer 17

A set of rules for generation strings of letters. Each number on the diagram is a railroad station and each arrow is a track you can follow from one station to another. this is used to test explicit vs. implicit learning using these grammar rules.

Question 18

Implicit vs. explicit learning

Answer 18

Learning that takes place unintentionally versus learning that takes place intentionally.

Question 19

Cognitive unconscious hypothesis

Answer 19

The hypothesis that implicit learning represents an evolutionarily primitive form of unconscious cognition. This has been argued though as participants who had learned artificial grammar rules implicitly were able to formulate hypotheses about them and even to express more confidence in the more correct judgments, showing they did have some conscious awareness of the basis for their decisions.

Question 20

Family resemblance

Answer 20

Instances of concepts that possess overlapping features, without any features being common to all. (Wittgenstein’s example of games having a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing).

Question 21

Prototypical

Answer 21

Representative of a pattern or category. Some objects are more prototypical and fit better into a category than others. Certain dogs are “doggier” than others, and we think of certain objects being more prototypical of a category than others.

Question 22

Correlated attributes

Answer 22

The hypothesis that some combinations of attributes tend to occur more frequently than other combinations. Ex. Animals with wings also tend to have feathers rather than fur.

Question 23

Vertical dimension

Answer 23

How general a concept is.

Question 24

Superordinate, basic, and subordinate levels (Rosch)

Answer 24

This is the vertical dimension. Levels of inclusiveness of a concept, as in furniture, chair, and kitchen chair, or fruit, apple, red delicious, or musical instrument, piano, grand piano. You get more specific as you go down the vertical dimension.

Question 25

Misaligned hierarchies

Answer 25

Judgments made at one level suggest one conclusion while judgments made at another level suggest a contrasting conclusion. Ex. if betting on what team will win, bet on Toronto, but if betting on which country will win, bet on an American team because it is more likely as there are more American teams that are also strong and likely to win.

Question 26

Commitment heuristic

Answer 26

A strategy in which we commit ourselves to the belief that something is true when it is only likely to be true, like slowing down when we think there’s a police car in the distance even if there might not be. One overuses a heuristic that has proved valuable in the past.

Question 27

Horizontal dimension

Answer 27

Within each category level, some category members are more prototypical than others.

Question 28

Graded structure

Answer 28

Describes a concept in which some members of the category are better examples of it than others. Three seems to be a better example of an odd number than 437, and a gun is a better weapon example than a shoe.

Question 29

Embodied cognition

Answer 29

The role of cognition is to facilitate successful interaction with the environment.

Question 30

Goal-derived category

Answer 30

A category invented for a specific purpose on a particular occasion. Categories like things not to eat on a diet or foods to eat in a hurry will cause us to classify objects differently than we normally would. A chair can also classify as emergency firewood instead of furniture if it is needed to be that, and although apples and oranges are usually classified together, in terms of foods to eat in a hurry oranges aren’t classified with apples because they require peeling. We can cross-classify objects like this.

Question 31

Perceptual symbols

Answer 31

Aspects of perceptual memories that stand for events in the world and enter into all forms of symbolic activity. Perceptual symbols represent brain states and they reside at the unconscious neural level in the brain. Features of a watermelon vs a half watermelon are different. They cause us to simulate different properties and images, different perceptual symbols.

Question 32

Category-specific deficits

Answer 32

Selective deficits in knowledge, resulting from brain damage. Patients had trouble identifying living beings but had no problem identifying inanimate objects. Living things are understood primarily for sensory features, while inanimate things are understood primarily by their functions. This leads to theories that assume that knowledge of a specific category is located near the sensory-motor areas of the brain that process its instances… this is not totally true. Some who had trouble identifying fruits could identify animals no problem.

Question 33

Primary metaphor

Answer 33

A pairing of subjective experience with sensorimotor experience. Filing a cup and watching the level of liquid rise leads to the primary metaphor “more is up”. We can easily understand things like the price is down because of this metaphor.

Question 34

Double-function words

Answer 34

Words that refer to both physical and psychological properties (eg. warmth). Warmth is associated with being nicer and kinder and more loving… it is a double function word and it is a pairing of that subjective experience and judgment with sensorimotor experience… like physical
warmth being associated with being nicer.

Question 35

Conceptual modules

Answer 35

Modules responsible for domain-specific knowledge, that deal exclusively with particular subject areas.

Question 36

Folk biology

Answer 36

The concepts that ordinary people use to understand living things.

Question 37

Folk taxonomy

Answer 37

A classification system composed of a hierarchy of groups. Can be compared to the vertical dimension levels Rosch used.