PSYA01H3 Chapter 8: Textbook-Chapter 8
Document Summary
Concept: the mental representation of an object, event, or idea. Categories: the clusters of interrelated concepts (ie. chair, table can all be in the single label furniture) Classical categorization: theory claims that objects or events are categorized according to a certain set of rules or by a specific set of features. Graded membership: the observation that some concepts appear to make better category members than others (ie. faster to say yes to a sparrow being a bird rather than a penguin) The choice a subject makes, as well as her reaction time to respond, is measured by the researcher. Shows us that some members of a category are recognized faster than others; subjects will almost always answer yes to sparrow than to a penguin. Prototype: mental representation of an average category member. Semantic network: an interconnected set of nodes (or concepts) and the links that join them to form a category. Hierarchy: structure moving from general to very specific.
