Lecture 2 - Categorization and Cognition Flashcards
what is gestalt
Organisation of the whole. Imagine a piece of music you could describe each note by pitch and volume and length but when you listen to the music you hear the melody - you don’t analyse it in that way. your listening to the piece as a whole
1950’s of social cognition
turings mind as computer theory
1970’s of social cognition
social cognition emerges when social psychologists apply the methods of cognitive scientists to their own field
Social cognition emerges when social psychologists apply the methods of cognitive scientists to their own field
1970
Category is
a group of objects that belong together
Concept is
the mental representation of this category
Categories are useful for (short)
determining what to do with an object depending what category it fits into (e.g. eat it/play with it)
Rosch 1978
categories of categorisation:
superordinate category - furniture
basic level - chair
subordinate category -dining room chair
Turings theory of mind a computer wheN
1950’s
Who developed hierarchical categorisation?
Rosch 1978
Explain a ‘classical’ or ‘defined features’ account of an object
Needs to answer a series of questions. If it can’t fulfil the criteria then it is not that object.
E.g. is it fruit shaped?
is it fruit sized?
is it metal? - if all yes the so far it is a fruit
Explain the ‘fuzzy’ or ‘probabilistic model’ or the theory of prototypes
Where the criteria are fuzzy - the thing to consider is there is no prototype game - there is no game that will satisfy every question/criteria.
What are the problems with the defined features account
Some things are impossible to provide a list for. e.g. games - could be that games need to be competitive or fun or have a winner. not all games will satisfy every the criteria.
What are the things that make up the probabilistic model
prototypes - abstract, never actually exists
exemplars - examples brought to mind from life
An objects belonging to a category is determined by how much it shares with the prototype
How do you determine an objects belonging to a category in terms of the fuzzy model
An objects belonging to a category is determined by how much it shares with the prototype
Do the same principles apply to social categorisation and object categorisation
- people perceive themselves as members of social groups
- this can skew your perception of people
- is it fair when we make judgements of groups we are not members of
- being a member of a categorised group affects your perception of others
Categories are useful because
they allow us to break the world into meaningful chunks that we are able to process. - we only have a certain PROCESSING CAPACITY. break it down for me fellas. they give meaning to things and allow us to make successful predictions (sometimes) and therefore take appropriate action.
Tafjel and Wilkes (1963)
Interested by whether judgement could be skewed by categorisation. Presented subjects with a series of lines varying in lengths but all A lines happened to be shorter than the B lines. This skewed peoples perception of line length when later on presented with a line labelled A or B
Line length - A or B
Tafjel and wilkes 1963
What was Tafjels principle
the accentuation principle
What was the line length perception thingy called
tafjels accentuation principle
Hogg and vaughn 2005
tafjels accentuation principle was later applied to a social situation…welsh men are better singers.
Welsh men are better singers
Hogg and Vaughn 2005
Sherif et al. (1961)
Well brought up middle class boys put into two groups at summer camp (rattlers vs eagles). They are put into competition against each other which causes rivalry between the group to escalate. can they bring them back together through co operation tasks? yes conflict decreased.
