Concepts and Categorisation Flashcards
William James “The Principles of Psychology” (1890)
What would happen without categories and their corresponding concepts?
Infants don’t separate their sensory experience into parts, but instead experience “one great blooming, buzzing confusion”
You wouldn’t be able to distinguish one thing from another and interact with it
According to James we learn to recognise things
- why do we need to recognise types of things?
- what do concepts provide?
- what does language give us?
- We need to recognize (learn to recognize in James’s view, but maybe some things are innate) types of thing (people, objects, situations, properties) in order to act consistently and achieve our aims.
- Concepts give a handle on what those types of thing (members of the categories) have in common.
- Language gives us labels for concepts – sometimes single words, sometimes longer expressions (“American Psychologist” for William James and co.)
Concept:
1- what does a concept tell us?
2- example
3- vocab?
1- A concept tell us what makes something a member of a category. (It has to have various features and properties)
2- For something to be a bird it has to be A LIVING THING (an ANIMAL, in fact)
- For something to be a bird it has to HAVE FEATHERS
3- “has to” – so these are called NECESSARY CONDITIONS. And when you have a set of these necessary conditions, they should be together SUFFICIENT for being a bird.
Above were the classical views.
What are the two (equivalent) ways of turning this idea into a psychological theory of how concepts are stored and used?
- FEATURE THEORIES (we store the sets of conditions as lists of features)
- NETWORK THEORIES (we store concepts in networks with IS and HAS links (BIRD is ANIMAL; BIRD has FEATHERS)
Semantic Network of Concepts
1-
Animal (has skin, can move around, eats, breathes)
2-
Bird (has wings, can fly, has feathers)
Fish (has fins, can swim, has gills)
3-
Canary (can sing, is yellow)
Ostrich (has long thin legs, tall, can’t fly)
Shark (can bite, is dangerous)
Salmon (pink, edible, swims upstream to lay eggs)
Hierarchy
To be efficient:
At the higher level- properties that all animals have but lower down you don’t repeat those from the higher level
Eleanor Rosch and typicality
- Eleanor Rosch (and others) soon noted that features or network links are not all that matters
- Typical members of categories are processed more easily than atypical members (robin vs ostrich as an example of a bird)
- What is important is whether you’re a typical or native category
- They have a different status within the category
Prototype Theory
1- what did this idea lead to?
2- what is linked to what prototype things are close to
3- what is an alternative idea?
1- These observations led to the idea that concepts are represented by PROTOTYPES (not by lists of features, or relations in a network)
2- Category membership depends on which prototype a particular thing is closest to.
- So, depends on a measure of closeness
3- An alternative idea is that prototypes are not themselves represented, only exemplars, and it is the clustering of exemplars that determines the centre of the space that a particular concept occupies
What is the main problems for Prototype Theory
CONCEPTUAL COMBINATION
- We don’t just use individual concepts, we can combine them.
- Conceptual combination is a complex process: compare TIN + CAN => “tin can” and TIN + MINE = “tin mine”
- Conceptual combination has been seen as a particular problem for prototype theory
Conceptual Combination
prototypical pet + prototypical fish = prototypical pet fish
Name 2 other problems for Prototype Theory
AD HOC CONCEPTS
Concepts and their corresponding categories that are put together on the fly, and therefore not stored in memory
- E.g. things to save in a house fire – although they are not stored in memory, they do show prototype effects
MATHEMATICAL CONCEPTS
They do show prototypically effects (7 is a more prototypical odd number than 343239089), but they have clear analytical definitions (odd numbers are not divisible by 2) – they are not DEFINED by prototypes.
“Theory” Theory
- explain
- what does it deal well with?
Just as scientific concepts are defined by the role they play in scientific theories, our everyday concepts are defined by their place in lay theories about the world and how it “works”.
”Theory” theory deals well with conceptual combination, because, for example, lay theories tell us that cans can be made of tin, but mines cannot (but they can be a source of tin)
Basic Level Categories
In a hierarchy, such as Braeburn – Apple – Fruit, concepts at one of the levels are easiest to deal with (on all sorts of measures)
— In this case Apple, with other concepts at this level being, e.g., Banana and Orange
At this (basic) level, the features of one type of object have a strong “correlational structure”, which is different from that of other types of object.
— Apples are similar, but apples and bananas differ
— At the higher level, fruits are diverse
- So one piece of fruit is not necessarily very similar to another one
— At the lower level, Braeburns are similar to Galas and Granny Smiths
- So, things in different categories resemble one another
Psychological work has tended to focus on concepts associated with concrete nouns. What are the two main types?
1) Natural kinds (people, animals, plants, natural objects)
2) Artefacts (man made objects: table, building, etc.)
Types of Concept
1- what are less studied?
2- what other concepts are there?
1- Less studied are abstract concepts, including scientific concepts (gravity, evolution, etc.) and social/societal concepts (family, law, government, etc.)
2- There are also concepts associated with verbs (events – “hit”, states – “admire”, processes – “decay” ) and adjectives (properties of nouns, “red”) and adverbs (properties of verbs, “suddenly”)
And there are concepts that help to link ideas (“and”, “because”, “before”)
What are abstract concepts?
Making metaphorical links
Theres a parallel between abstract state and things being in contained
