Categorization Exam: Novel Stimuli & Exemplar Theory, Psychology Chapter 3

Study Notes

Concepts and Categorization

Concepts are mental representations of a category, allowing us to categorize stimuli we have never encountered before.
Concepts have functions such as categorization of novel stimuli, fast and efficient understanding, and making inferences of knowledge not explicitly stated.

Family Resemblances

Members of a concept share family resemblances, meaning they may not all share the same attributes, but have common characteristics.
Examples: birds, chairs, dogs

Levels of Organization (Rosch)

Superordinate level: the most generic and inclusive level of a conceptual category.
Basic level: the most useful level of a concept, characterized by neither too much nor too little information.
Subordinate level: the most restrictive, specific level of a conceptual category.

Sematic Networks

A structure for how information is stored in long-term (semantic) memory.
Concepts are represented as nodes, interconnected by links or pathways.
Activation spreads from concept to concept along connecting pathways, depending on time, distance, and number of concepts activated.

Theories of Concept Representation

Classical View

People create and use categories based on a system of rules (e.g., a dog has 4 legs, barks, has fur, eats).
Necessary and sufficient features.
Pros: easy to generate new concepts.
Cons: categories not well defined (e.g., tools, ballet).

Probabilistic Approaches

People abstract the common elements of a particular concept and store an abstracted prototypical representation in memory.
Prototype: a member of a conceptual category exhibiting a collection of typical features or attributions.
Prototype theory: based on similarity among members and comparison to standards.
Pros: allows us to make decisions quickly.
Cons: categories may be hard to pick out key features.

Exemplar Theory

People take into account each encounter with members of a category.
Based on similarity among members and comparison to standards.
Concepts are represented by any number of specific members of the concept.
Pros: works well for poorly defined categories (e.g., fruit, sports, mammals).
Cons: requires multiple comparisons.

Essentialist Approach

People have a general idea of the essence of particular concepts.
Members of a category have a fundamental similarity (essence).

Hypothesis Testing Theory

Proposed by Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin.
Wholist strategy: responding to all attributes of a conceptual class or category.
Partist strategy: focusing on a single attribute of a conceptual class or category.
Concept learning: hypothesis testing about a concept by making guesses about which attributes are essential for defining the concept.

Concept Learning Problems

Role of confirmatory and disconformity feedback.
Participants forget their hypotheses.
Complex concepts: conjunctive and disjunctive concepts.

Real-World Applications

Applicable in everyday life, such as categorizing objects or people.

Description

Test your knowledge of concepts and categorization in psychology, including mental representations, semantic memory, and the functions of concepts. Learn how we categorize novel stimuli, make inferences, and learn concepts through hypothesis testing.