Psychology 3130A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Superbase, Linear Separability, Exemplar Theory
22 Jun 2018
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Chapter 4 – Concepts and Categories
Introduction
- Concepts used to make predictions, infer features, attributes, understand world
-Category: things in outside world that are structured into groups
-Concept: mental representations that denote the category (how we represent these groups)
- Categorization allows quick judgements, but sometimes can be misclassified
Why do people categorize?
Stimulus Generalization
- Natural tendency to generalize
oOrganism extends learned behavioural response to whole class of stimuli
- William James => all creatures may have concept abilities
- Generalizations guided by similarity
oBehaviour to a new stimulus depends on how similar it is to an old stimulus
Efficiency
- Reduction in amount of info retained about a group of things
-Behavioural equivalence class: behave the same towards group/class of things
oEg. Cat meows at sound of can opening, behaves same way regardless if a different can is opened
-Cognitive efficiency: representing many things under one core representation
Concepts are Natural
- Objects/things in world may be self-categorizing
- Regularities occur in the world which are discovered by humans
- Humans form categories based on ALREADY existing categories
The Functions of Concepts
How to React
- Concepts represent cognitive representations that influence HOW a person reacts
- New stimuli => classify => react toward it the same way you would a stimuli of same category
oEg. See a basketball => classify as a “ball” => use it to play with
- Categories bias attitudes, perceptions, etc in subtle and implicit ways
Predictions and Inferences
- Concepts used to predict how future objects of a category will be like
- Eg. “game” concept => predict that future “games” will have an objective
Communication
- Effective way to communicate info to other people
- Use concepts as way of communicating with other people without referring to EVERYTHING regarding the
stimuli
oEg. Basketball is a ball vs. Basketball is an orange sphere used for games, etc
Problem-Solving
- Concepts useful in problem-solving
- Compare new problem w/ previously solved problem => apply same strategy
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Concepts used to make predictions, infer features, attributes, understand world. Category: things in outside world that are structured into groups. Concept: mental representations that denote the category (how we represent these groups) Categorization allows quick judgements, but sometimes can be misclassified. Natural tendency to generalize: organism extends learned behavioural response to whole class of stimuli. William james => all creatures may have concept abilities. Generalizations guided by similarity: behaviour to a new stimulus depends on how similar it is to an old stimulus. Reduction in amount of info retained about a group of things. Behavioural equivalence class: behave the same towards group/class of things: eg. Cat meows at sound of can opening, behaves same way regardless if a different can is opened. Cognitive efficiency: representing many things under one core representation. Regularities occur in the world which are discovered by humans. Humans form categories based on already existing categories. Concepts represent cognitive representations that influence how a person reacts.
