Conceptual understanding Flashcards
What are concepts
Internalised, abstract representations of objects and events which are more than sensory perceptual representations
What is the difference between old and new perspectives on concepts?
Old: = symbolic representations which are discrete and all or nothing: you either have it or you don’t
New: = distributed representations which are refined with incremental experience
Name 2 processes underpinning conceptual development
1) categorisation: judging an exemplar as a category member on the basis of perceptual and relational (structural) similarity, which allows us to predict its behaviour
2) inductive learning: generalising traits from a known (e.g. prototype) to novel exemplar
How do we test for the presence of concept building mechanisms?
Habituate to exemplars of category X. Test the ability to discriminate between a novel exemplar of the same category and a novel exemplar of a different category
How is statistical learning involved in concept development?
In calculating conditional probabilities e.g. what is the probability that x is a bird, given it has wings?
What is the basic level of categorisation?
The level at which the world is naturally categorised for us by its perceptual features. Basic level concepts are correlated with these features e.g. cars tends to have 4 wheels
Why does the basic level have the greatest psychological utility?
Because we get the most conceptual info with the least cognitive effort
What are prototypes?
Highly typical basic-level concepts
Do 3m distinguish between basic-level categories? How did Arterberry & Bornstein (2001) test this?
Yes when either motion or just perceptual cues to category membership are available
Habituation to point-light displays of exemplars
To test whether knowledge of perceptual prototypes is actually conceptual, we need to apply 3 measures to preverbal children. These are:
1) sequential touching: do children prefer handling objects which are in the same category as other items in the sequence?
2) object manipulation: how long do children spend manipulating a different vs. same category object?
3) matching-to-sample: do children match the 2 same-category items out of the 3 presented?
Can superordinate categorisation be conducted using perceptual cues only? At what age can children categorise at the superordinate level: 12, 15 or 20m? Mandler & Bauer (1988) using sequential touching
No e.g. perceptual cues do not distinguish horse/ spider (animals) vs. plane/ motorbike (vehicles) but do distinguish poodle/ collie (dogs) vs. volkswagen/ beetle (cars). 20m
How did Pauen (2002) use object manipulation to show that perceptual dividers of basic level categories disrupt superordinate categorisation ability? At what age is this ability revealed when such interference is removed?
Familiarisation: manipulated one set of objects matched by shape to the other set (animals vs. furniture). Test: removed perceptual differences between the two stimuli shown. Finding: 11m manipulated the novel superordinate category for longer, despite its familiar shape = conceptual, not perceptual, categorisation
Did 19m, 25m and 31m succeed at matching-to-sample at the basic and superordinate levels? (Bauer & Mandler, 1989)
Yes, all succeeded at all levels
Does categorisation depend on perceptual or relational similarity?
Rosch: both: perceptual similarity correlates with and so is a guide to deeper structural similarity
Which dominates when perceptual similarity is pitted against structural similarity in categorisation? What was the procedure of Gelman & Markman (1986, 1987)?
Relational similarity. 3 & 4y shown picture of a target category e.g. cat. Then asked ‘can [new image] see in the dark if the cat can?’. The new image was of a same/ different category member with similar/ dissimilar appearance to the target
