PSYC 3260 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Eleanor Rosch, Family Resemblance, Pomegranate

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3260
• Professor: Casperde Boer

Document Summary

Conceptual knowledge: knowledge that enables us to recognize objects and events and to make inferences about their properties. Mental representation of a class or individual. The meaning of objects, events, and abstract ideas. Provide a wealth of general information about an item. Allows us to identify the special characteristics of a particular item. Helps us to understand individual cases not previously encountered. Approaches to categorization: definitional approach, prototype approach, exemplar approach. Categorization based on whether the object meets the definition of the. Chair = (cid:498)piece of furniture consisting of a set, legs and back, designed to sit one person(cid:499). Family resemblance: objects in a particular category resemble each other in various ways. Prototype = average representation of the member of a category. Average based on all members of specific category encountered in the past. High-prototypicality vs. low-prototypicality. (cid:498)an apple is a fruit(cid:499), (cid:498)a pomegranate is a fruit(cid:499) Our mind assesses how closely a category member resembles the category: typicality effect.