Categories and Concepts

Question 1

Categorization (Intro) (2)

Answer 1

• The cognitive ability to sort people, objects, and ideas into categories and concepts helps us efficiently process incoming data and make the appropriate response.
• Ever-occurring and often intuitive ability which makes decision-making less overwhelming.

Question 2

Communication (2.1)

Answer 2

• Ability to describe complex ideas or objects using a single label.
  EX. The domesticated carnivore that weighs 30 pounds, would be known as a dog.
• Gives you a wealth of information instead of giving you the possibility of naming another animal based on description alone.

Question 3

Classification

Answer 3

• Ability to classify dissimilar objects as belonging to the same group.
  EX. There are two dogs of different breeds, we still categorize them under the umbrella term of dog.

Question 4

Understanding

Answer 4

• The ability to evaluate a situation and act accordingly.
  EX. if one sees a dog growling and barking, they can understand that the dog does not want to be pet.

Question 5

Illusion of the expert

Answer 5

• The feeling that a task must be simple for everyone because it is simple for oneself.
  EX. Tying your shoelace is easy, but it is not as simple for a child.

Question 6

Categories vs. concepts

Answer 6

• Used interchangeably, but they have their distinctions.
• A category refers to a set of objects or events that can be grouped together.
  EX . Birds, monkeys, lizards, and flies are categorized as animals
• Concepts are our mental representation of a category.

Question 7

Rules

Answer 7

• It is impossible to create a rule that includes all members of a category.
• The more complex the topic, such as beauty, freedom, or justice, the more difficult it is to devise simple rules to define abstract categories.

Question 8

Family resemblance (2.1)

Answer 8

• The idea that members of a category share overlapping features, even though each individual feature may not be shared amongst all members.
• Family resemblance suggests that all members of a category resemble one another.
  EX. There might be no defining feature shared by all muscle instruments, but there are common features that link together large subsets of this category.

Question 9

Prototype theory

Answer 9

• Categorization that suggests we have one “ideal” member for each category that represents the average of all category members.
• When we encounter a new stimulus, we compare it to all our prototypes to find the closest match.
  EX. Everyone has a different picture that comes to mind when they are tasked to think of something. When asked to picture a bird, you may think of a robin or even an average of all birds that you’ve encountered if you lived in a tropical environment. This varies from person to person.
  –> NOTE: the prototype does not have to be real
• Typical categories are categorized faster than atypical categories.
  EX. is a robin a bird? is a penguin a bird? AKA GRADED MEMBERSHIP: Category members are more representative than others.
  ——BORDERLINE MEMBERSHIP: members that do not clearly belong inside or outside of a particular category.

Question 10

Exemplar Theory

Answer 10

• We categorize objects by comparing them to every previously stored experience in a given category. You are storing a lifetime’s worth of experience.
• When a new situation is encountered, we uncategorize stimuli and compare them to all exemplars until we find a sufficient match. Once a match is found, it becomes a new exemplar to can be used to categorize future stimuli.
  EX. In the example of the bird and penguin, exemplar theory states that in North America, you encounter/ had more robin exemplars and memories in your lifetime than penguins, which is why recall is more readily available. AKA OLD ITEM ADVANTAGE EFFECT.

Question 11

Sentence verification task

Answer 11

• An experimental procedure in which participants are presented with a sentence and must determine whether that sentence is true or false as quickly as possible.

Question 12

Ill-defined category vs well-defined category

Answer 12

• Captures the idea that we cannot come up with a set of rules for the category dog.
• Well-defined is the opposite.

Question 13

Essentialism

Answer 13

• The belief that members of a category have deep underlying properties that cause them to be in that category.
• Sea fan = animal

Question 14

Categorization in Children

Answer 14

• Children as young as 3 y/o are able to understand general categories.
  EX. Their dog likes treats, therefore all dogs like treats
• They also have a deeper understanding of hypothetical categorization.
  EX. Suppose you have a toaster. You ask a child if it can be turned into a teapot. The child will agree. However, if you show a raccoon and suggest that you paint it black with a white strip and call it a raccoon, the child will most likely disagree.

Question 15

Disorders that impact categorization

Answer 15

1. Anomia: brain disorder whereby one cannot name common objects.
   –> The brain shows impaired area was different for every group, meaning that we hold categories in different parts of the brain.
2. Object agnosia: A disorder where an individual cannot recognize objects despite having perfect vision.
   EX. not tell the difference that a closed umbrella and an open umbrella are the same objects.