PSYCH 1X03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Prototype Theory, Stereotype, Exemplar Theory
5 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Attention: helps you to focus finite mental resources on key parts of the active scene. Memory: helps you recall specific thoughts and behaviours which are appropriate to your current needs. Your cognitive ability to put people into categories and concepts helps you to efficiently process through the incoming data stream and make appropriate responses. Without the cognitive ability to categorize, every sensory experience would be completely unique. The illusion of the expert: the feeling that a task must be simple for everyone because it is simple for oneself. Prototype theory: we categorize objects by comparing them to an internal best representation of a given category. Prototypes are thought to be the average or best" member of a category. Each person has different prototypes for given categories (i think of apple when someone asks about fruit while you might think of grapes) Prototypes are the average representation of all personal experiences.
