CHAPTER 9 CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE Flashcards
what is conceptual knowledge?
knowledge that enables us to recognize objects/events and to make inferences to their properties
what is a concept (1)
the mental representation of a class/individual
what is a concept(2)
categories of objects, events, and abstract ideas
what is a category?
all possible examples of a particular concept
what is categoriaztion?
the process by which things are placed in categories
describe the definitional approach to categorization
determining whether a particular object meets the definition of a category
what philosopher coined the term family resemblance to characterize similarities between objects?
Ludwig Wittgenstein
what is family resemblance?
refers to the idea that things in a particular category resemble one another in a number of ways
describe the prototype approach to categorization
when membership of a category is determined by comparing the object to a prototype of that category
what problem does family resemblance attempt to resolve?
definitions often do not include all members of a category
what is a prototype?
typical member of a category
who proposed a typical prototype is based on an average of members of a category that are commonly experienced
Elanor Rosch
what is Rosch’s idea of high typicality?
a category member closely resembling the category prototype
what is Rosch’s idea of low typicality?
a category member does not closely resemble a category prototype
variations within categories represent differences in _____
typicality
how did Rosch use prototypicality in an experiment?
quantified it by presenting participants with a category title and 50 members of the category for them to rate based on representation
what were the 3 conclusions Rosch came to from her prototypicality experiment?
high overlap of characteristics means there’s a high family resemblance
little overlap of characteristics means there’s low family resemblance
there is a strong relationship between family resemblance and prototypicality
who used sentence verification technique to determine how rapidly people could answer questions about an object’s category
Edward Smith
describe the sentence verification technique
presenting statements and are followed by a yes or no response to the statement being true
what did Edward Smith find using the sentence verification technique?
people responded faster for objects that are high in prototypicality
what is the typicality effect?
the ability to judge highly prototypical objects more rapidly
if someone was asked to list as many objects in a particular category, according to prototypicality, where on the list would the prototypical objects be?
in the beginning
prototypical objects can be affected more by the use of ____
priming
what is priming?
when presentation of a stimulus facilitates the response to another stimulus that usually follows close in time