concepts and categorisation Flashcards
William James: The principles of psychology: without categories and their corresponding concepts
- infants don’t separate their sensory experience into parts,
- but instead, experience ‘one great blooming buzzing confusion’
recognising things allows us to..
act consistently and achieve our aims
concepts give
us a handle on what types of thing have in common
language gives
us labels for concepts - sometimes single words, sometimes longer experessions
classical view: what is a concept?
- tells us what makes something a member of a category
feature theories: a set of conditions as lists of features:
e.g. bird:
- living
- feathers
network theories: we store concepts in networks with IS and HAS links
e.g. bird is animal; bird has feathers
feature theories
a set of conditions as lists of features:
e.g. bird:
- living
- feathers
Smith and colleagues
network theories
we store concepts in networks with IS and HAS links
e.g. bird is an animal; a bird has feathers
Collins and colleagues
Eleanor Rossch and Typicality
- features or network links are not all that matters
- typical members are processed more easily than atypical members e.g. pigeon vs ostrich
prototype theory
- concepts are represented by prototypes ‘’
- category membership depends on which prototype a particular thing is closest to
> depends on a measure of closeness
problems with prototype theory
conceptual combination:
- we don’t just use individual concepts, we combine them
- conceptual combination is a complex process: TIN + CAN = ‘tin can’ and TIN + MINE = ‘tin mine’
if the meaning of a concept is a prototype, it’s not clear how we define a combination of concepts
AD HOC concepts:
concepts and their corresponding categories that are put together on the fly, and therefore are not stored in memory
e.g. things to save in a fire - not stored in memory but do show prototype effects
Mathematical concepts:
- e.g. odd numbers - they show prototypicality effects 7 = more prototypical than 395839, but they have clear analytical definitions - (not divisible by 2) not defined by prototypes
AD HOC concepts
concepts and their corresponding categories that are put together on the fly, and therefore are not stored in memory
e.g. things to save in a fire - not stored in memory but do show prototype effects
mathematical concepts
Mathematical concepts:
- e.g. odd numbers - they show prototypicality effects 7 = more prototypical than 395839, but they have clear analytical definitions - (not divisible by 2) not defined by prototypes
‘theory’ theory
- everyday concepts are defined by their place in (lay) theories about the world and how it ‘works’
- deals with conceptual combination
e.g. lay theories tell us that can be made of tin but mines cannot
basic level categories
- concepts have hierarchy
- one of the levels is easiest to deal with - basic level categories
apple compared to bananas (Easy)
fruit - could compare types of apples to each other (harder)
types of concept
Concrete nouns:
Natural (people, animals, plants, natural objects)
Artefacts (man-made objects: table, building, etc)
Abstract:
scientific(gravity, evolution)
social/societal(family, law, gov)
Verbs: (events - hit, states - admire, processes - decay)
Adjectives(properties of nouns - red)
Adverbs:(properties of verbs, suddenly
Concepts that link ideas (and, because, before)
