Week 13: Cognitive Development Flashcards
What is the purpose of mental concepts of categories?
To permit appropriate responses to new objects encountered.
What is a basic-level category?
The most salient category at an intermediate level of specificity (e.g., chairs rather than furniture).
What are the two main theories of how people learn concepts?
- Summary description of a whole category
- Learning exemplars of the category
What is the relationship between concepts and knowledge?
People can more easily learn concepts that are consistent with their knowledge.
What are concepts in psychology?
Mental representations of categories.
What is an example of a category that may not have a clear definition?
Planets, as evidenced by the debate over Pluto’s classification.
True or False: Categories are traditionally assumed to be well-defined.
True.
What are fuzzy categories?
Categories with unclear boundaries that can shift over time.
What did Hampton (1979) find about category membership?
Items are not clear members or nonmembers, but form a continuum.
What is typicality in the context of categories?
The degree to which an item is considered a good example of a category.
How does typicality influence cognition?
- Judged category members more often
- Faster categorization
- Learned before atypical items
- Easier language comprehension
- Typical items produced first in language.
What does the family resemblance theory propose?
Items are typical if they have features frequent in the category and not frequent in other categories.
What is an example of a category hierarchy?
brown bear > bear > mammal > vertebrate > animal > entity.
Fill in the blank: The most typical category member is often called the _______.
[category prototype]
What did Rosch and Mervis (1975) demonstrate about typical items?
Subjects learned items with common features before those with less common features.
What influence does frequency have on typicality?
Frequency has some effect, but it’s not the most important variable.
What is the significance of borderline items in categories?
They illustrate that category membership can be ambiguous and subjective.
What did McCloskey and Glucksberg (1978) find about people’s judgments of category membership?
People often change their judgments about borderline items.
How do children typically label categories according to Brown (1958)?
They tend to use the names that adults prefer to use.
What is the core function of concepts in intelligent behavior?
To allow individuals to know what to do in new situations.
Fill in the blank: Concepts allow you to extend what you have learned about a limited number of objects to a _______ set of entities.
[potentially infinite]
What is an example of a borderline category item?
An olive being considered a fruit.
What is the preference for the basic level of categorization?
It refers to the tendency to label categories at a level that is neither too specific nor too general.
This concept was first studied in detail by Eleanor Rosch and her students.
Who first studied the basic level of categorization?
Eleanor Rosch and her students.
Reference: Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson, & Boyes-Braem, 1976.
What is the Goldilocks effect in categorization?
The idea that the basic level of categorization is just right—not too specific and not too general.
Example: ‘bear’ is a basic level label compared to ‘northern brown bear’ (subordinate) and ‘animal’ (superordinate).
What did Rosch et al. (1976) find about basic-level categories?
They found that basic-level labels are much more frequent than subordinate or superordinate labels in printed text.
They also found that people were faster at identifying objects as members of basic-level categories.
True or False: Basic-level categories are harder to learn than subordinate categories.
False. Basic-level categories are usually easier to learn than subordinate categories.
What influences the preferred level of categorization?
People’s knowledge and interest in the categories.
For instance, experts may prefer more specific categories than novices.
What is prototype theory in concept representation?
It suggests that people have a summary representation of a category, typically based on weighted features.
Reference: Smith & Medin, 1981.
What is exemplar theory in concept representation?
It posits that concepts are represented by remembered examples (exemplars) rather than a summary representation.
Reference: Medin & Schaffer, 1978.
Fill in the blank: According to prototype theory, the features of a category are _______.
[weighted by their frequency in the category]
What do people do when they want to classify an object according to exemplar theory?
They compare it to exemplars in their memory and judge similarity.
This involves calculating similarity scores for different categories.
What is psychological essentialism?
The belief that some categories have an underlying property that is unique to that category and causes other features.
This is often observed in natural kinds like animals and plants.
How do people’s existing knowledge affect learning new concepts?
People try to connect new concepts to what they already know about the world, which influences how quickly and effectively they learn.
For example, learning about new technology often draws on prior knowledge of related devices.
What did Keil’s (1989) experiment reveal about essentialism?
Subjects believed that a raccoon altered to look like a skunk was still a raccoon, demonstrating the belief in an underlying essence.
In contrast, they accepted that a modified coffeepot could become a bird feeder.
List three signs of essentialism.
- Belief in strict category membership (in or out)
- Resistance to change in category membership
- For living things, belief in an unchangeable essence.
What is the belief that members of a category have an unseen property that causes them to be in the category?
Psychological essentialism
Psychological essentialism suggests that certain attributes are intrinsic to members of specific categories.
What are the signs of essentialism?
- Objects are believed to be either in or out of the category, with no in-between
- Resistance to change of category membership or of properties connected to the essence
- For living things, the essence is passed on to progeny
These signs help identify essentialist thinking in categorization.
True or False: Essentialism applies only to person categories.
False
Essentialism can apply to various categories, not just those involving people.
How do concepts of different kinds of people develop in childhood?
They are learned through various processes, but the exact mechanisms are still under investigation
Research is ongoing to understand how these concepts may change in adulthood.
What is a basic-level category?
The neutral, preferred category for a given object, at an intermediate level of specificity
Basic-level categories are often the most informative and commonly used.
Define ‘category’ in the context of concepts.
A set of entities that are equivalent in some way, usually similar to one another
Categories help organize knowledge and facilitate understanding.
What is an exemplar?
An example in memory that is labeled as being in a particular category
Exemplars are used to compare new instances against known categories.
What does typicality refer to in categorization?
The difference in ‘goodness’ of category members, ranging from the most typical (the prototype) to borderline members
Typicality affects how easily a member is recognized as part of a category.
What influences the differences in concepts across cultures?
Different interests and interactions with the world
Cultural context plays a significant role in how concepts are formed and understood.
What conclusion can be drawn about the relationship between concepts and everyday thought?
Concepts are central to our everyday thought and influence our expectations and behaviors
Understanding categories helps in planning and interacting with the world.
Fill in the blank: Essentialism may emphasize the difference between groups and even justify _______.
discrimination
This is particularly evident in the context of gender, racial, and ethnic groups.
What challenges does essentialism present when applied to humans?
It may reinforce stereotypes and justify discrimination
Essentialist beliefs can lead to harmful societal perceptions.
What is the role of neural structures in understanding concepts?
Different aspects of concepts are likely accomplished by different neural structures
Research indicates that concept formation is a complex cognitive process.
