PSYCH 1X03 Lecture Notes - Exemplar Theory, Prototype Theory
Document Summary
Why categorize: classification allows us to treat objects that appear differently as belonging together (ex: apples, understanding, predicting (current experience and comparing it to past experience), communication. Illusion of the expert: illusion of the expert: the feeling that something must be simple because you"re good at it. Subtopic: prototypes: suggests that we categorize objects by comparing them to an internal representation of the category called a prototype, prototypes are thought to be the average, or best member of a category, prototypes are formed through experience. Subtopic: problems with prototypes: good chance that when asked to write down an object from a certain category, answers will be inconsistent with time. Evidence for exemplar: many more robin exemplars in memory than penguin (larger in quantity) Children categorization: children as young as 3 are able to understand general categories (able to generalize) members of the same categories share similar characteristics, deeper understanding of categories.