Concepts Flashcards
What is a category
A category is what a concept is about it is external to the mind
The concept of chest can map to the category of human body parts
What is a concept
It is a general idea formed in the mind
Concept of a cat is the general idea of a cat
Concepts are internal to the mind
Burner et al
Groups objects, places, people and things together not uniqueness
Says concepts are at work when when similarities in behaviour are shown towards different objects and differences in behaviour to different objects
What is a category
A category a concept apply o every one of a class of things = category
Ross and Murphy
Show categorisation in sorting task
Eggs = breakfast! dairy product
Sometimes eggs go into same category
Suggests groups indicate the underlying concept
Barslow
Argues categorisation is reflected in a persons goals - fire - wot wud you rescue
Platypus
Concepts and cat is a complex matter quiets difficult
Theories around concepts
Classical
Prototype
Common sense
Essential
Main idea of classical
- if something is a category member, then it must have properties common to the category’s member
- if something has the properties common to a category member then it must be a member of that category
Support for classical
Bruner et al
Showed ppl categories according to if instances possessed necessary and sufficient conditions of that category
Crit of classical
Rosch- rated objects- typicality rating robin and pengune, suggests an internal cat
Tested this idea with rosch and rips et al - used sentence verification and time, found that high typical sentences verified faster then atypical sentence.
Mervis, support for an internal structure found shared properties. This view challenges the classical view
Borderline cases colours wen does red become orange
Mccloskey and glucksberg
Lack of definition
Wittgenstein games cat can be in definable but doesn’t mean all natural ones are
What does the prototype theory say
Idea that concepts are organised around a central tendency of a cat
Support for prototype
Fits in well with Rosch theory of weightings the value of an object of a concept to the cat
Challenges to the prototype theory
Armstrong says typically effects occur for concepts that r definitional it is not conclusive evidence that membership is based on similarity of the prototype, suggests a dual process model, classical is the core and the prototype is the identification procedure
Another crit is medin and shoben, spoon wood spoon and metal spoon there is instability within the prototype
What does the common sense theory say
Suggestion that categories depend on deeper knowledge
Murphy et al suggests concepts are explanation based “intoxicated” plays role in explaining behaviour we need them to explain things.
Essentialism theory
Ppl believe and act as though category members have certain essential properties in common, superficial properties for example a genetics of a dog = their behaviour
If the object did not have these essential properties it would not be that object
Ppl have. Placeholder for an essence, can b empty if the person does not have the knowledge and not everyone has the same placeholder for every cat
Support for essentialism
Gelman and wellman
4/5 yrs believe the inside and outsides of dogs make them a dog if remove outside it is still a dog if take inside then not a dog = they are essentialist
Crit of essent
Malt
H20 is the essense of water if has this it is cat as water
However pond water has 78% of h20 but not cat this way cat r influenced by source and location
What now
None seem to answer but all important in helping to understand
It is not a simple prosess
Cud b argued that there may b a number of different kinds of categorisation
Depends on the definition
Categories can b fuzzy boarder line cases
More research needed
Ppl don’t cat the same way taxonomists knowledge of trees individual
Neuro show diff brain areas for diff cat
Conclusion maybe it is multilayered and we call on diff cat for diff purposes
Next step to c how it works
