Categorical Mind

Question 1

What is categorical perception

Answer 1

we perceive the world in a categorical manner so that differences in objects that belong to different categories are accentuated. differences between objects that fall in the same category are downplayed

Question 2

pros of categorical thinking

Answer 2

provides a framework in which high level cognition can be grounded in perception and action

equivalence classes- distinguishable stimuli are treated identically once they have been placed in the same category

perceptual linear systems transform relatively linear sensory signals into relatively nonlinear internal representations

Question 3

2 routes to understanding ppl

Answer 3

1. person categorisation
   - categorical thinking
   - generic knowledge
   - fast and efficient
2. person individuation
   - unique persons
   - effortful, thoughtful + idiosyncratic

Question 4

cons of categorical person perception

Answer 4

- triggering cues (hair)
feature based processing
presentation duration
categorisation vs individuation
sources of evidence
processing conditions

Question 5

Evidence:

Sex/identity construal

Answer 5

effects of inversion
inverting Julia Roberts: disrupting configurable processing
a lot harder to identify

sex vs identity: category-based
sex vs familiarity: personal-based
Sex categorisation is much faster than identity judgement even when inverted.

You do not need optimal conditions

Question 6

Evidence: does viewpoint matter?

Answer 6

Feature cues (e.g. hair) seem to help you
when taking away the critical cue categorisation turns into a less efficient process.

Question 7

Allports view

Answer 7

“As long as we can get away with contextualisation we do so”
“the human mind must think with the aid of categories…we cannot possibly avoid this process”
“the nature of prejudice” in 1954
the least effort principle
all human brains use stereotyping as a cognitive function to understand the world
cognitive shortcut/cognitive miser

Question 8

Macrae and Bodenhausen 1997

Answer 8

Attempting to make sense of other perceivers we regularly use and construct categorical person perception
social perceiver is categorised as a “Cognitive miser”
- humans are rarely motivated to engage in mental activity to form evaluation of other people

Question 9

Category

Answer 9

Totality that perceivers have in mind about various groups of individuals