Concepts & Categories

Concepts

Mental representations of classes of things that help us understand the world and make predictions.

Classical View of Concepts

A philosophical tradition that defines concepts through necessary and sufficient features.

Typicality

The degree to which a member of a category represents that category; influences categorization speed and consistency.

Family Resemblance

The extent to which an exemplar shares attributes with other exemplars in its category.

Prototype Theory

A theory that suggests concepts are represented by a central tendency or typical example of a category.

Exemplar Theory

A theory stating that individuals store specific examples and categorize based on similarity to these examples.

Transitivity

The logical relationship in hierarchical categorization where properties are inherited through categories. If one understands that a dog is a mammal and that a labrador is a dog, then a labrador must be a mammal.

Property Inheritance

The concept that lower categories inherit properties from higher taxonomic categories.

Basic Category Level

The preferred level of categorization that balances informativeness and distinctiveness.

Induction

The ability to generalize properties from known category members to others.the process by which people decide, without explicit instruction, whether specific properties observed for some exemplars of a category can also be extended to new itemsthe process by which people decide, without explicit instruction, whether specific properties observed for some exemplars of a category can also be extended to new items

Prior Knowledge

Previous information or experiences that influence how new concepts are categorized.

Categorization Behavior

How individuals categorize items based on their similarity to known exemplars or prototypes.

Expertise in Categorization

The ability of experts to classify items more efficiently and accurately based on underlying commonalities.