L16 - Conceptual Development, Conceptual Hierarchies and Contrast Categories Flashcards
(35 cards)
Which is the examplar model
GCM or MPM
GCM
The more dimensions that participants need to learn for categories the
longer it takes them to learn and they make more errors
Describe the method of the Ameel, Malt & Storms (2008) real world category learning experiment
What were the findings of the Ameel, Malt & Storms (2008) real world category learning experiment?
- When children are younger, their categories are very broad and used only a limited set of words - (most were said to be “bowls”)
- As they got older, new words added to their vocabulary
- As words are added, their categories get restructured
How does our ability to categorize change as we get older?
We become more specific with our categories
The closer in ___ people are, the more similar their naming patterns are
Age
Children tend to __________ their words, but this narrows over time
Over-extends
e.g. everything is called a bottle at the start, and this gets more defined over time
Categories are culture, person and time-specific
True or False
True
things we call a bottle might not be a bottle in another culture
is there 1-1 overlaps with category representations in different cultures?
No, categories are different among cultures
Are categories stable across time?
No
Categories are dynamic and constantly changing
Within categories, under-extended words _____ over time
Broaden
What type of structure do real-world categories have?
Hierarchical Structure
Tree of life
Our conceptual representeations follow what type of structure?
Hierarchical Structure
Ranges from more abstract to more concrete
In a hierarchical concept structure, a animal is a more 1)_____ representation and a sausage dog is a more 2______ representation
1) abstract
2) concrete
What are the three levels of the hierarchical concept structure?
Super-ordinate
Basic
Sub-ordinate
Items located at the same level of abstraction in the hierarchical concept structure are called?
ordinates
Which level of hierarchy do people typically give when being asked a question?
Why?
Basic level
It is most useful, as it contains the best balance between informativeness and distinctiveness
What is the downside of using a high level of abstraction in the super-ordinate categories
They lack informativeness
What are the pros and cons of using a sub-ordinate category level?
Sub-ordinate categories are highly informative, but lack distinctiveness
They are too specific
What is the most useful category level to use in the hierarchical concept structure?
Basic Category
Most people use the basic level when they are naming items, however, what did Tanaka and Taylor (1991) show that this is dependent on?
Expertise
Experts more likely to give names at the sub-ordinate level
For using the correct name, efficient thinking requires choosing the right level of ______
abstraction
e.g. we are more likely to say ‘Look at that rabid dog’
than ‘Look at that rabid sausage dog’, or ‘Look at
that rabid animal’. Note: all three statements make sense
– other times it makes sense to be more abstract. We say: ‘Today I went to the zoo and saw lots of
different animals’, rather than listing all the
different animals you saw
How does storying categories within a hierarchical organisation optimize cognitive economy
The features of the category apply to its members, so we don’t need to remember the individual members features if we remember the superordinate category.
Because a cat is a mammal we can infer it <has> and <lactates>. We don’t need to explicitly associate these features with cat.</lactates></has>
Rosch & Mervis (1975) argued that graded category strucutre isn’t just based on inter-item similarity of the category members, but it should also be influenced by ________
contrast categories
