William James: The principles of psychology: without categories and their corresponding concepts
- infants don’t separate their sensory experience into parts,
- but instead, experience ‘one great blooming buzzing confusion’
recognising things allows us to..
act consistently and achieve our aims
concepts give
us a handle on what types of thing have in common
language gives
us labels for concepts - sometimes single words, sometimes longer experessions
classical view: what is a concept?
- tells us what makes something a member of a category
feature theories: a set of conditions as lists of features:
e.g. bird:
- living
- feathers
network theories: we store concepts in networks with IS and HAS links
e.g. bird is animal; bird has feathers
feature theories
a set of conditions as lists of features:
e.g. bird:
- living
- feathers
Smith and colleagues
network theories
we store concepts in networks with IS and HAS links
e.g. bird is an animal; a bird has feathers
Collins and colleagues
Eleanor Rossch and Typicality
- features or network links are not all that matters
- typical members are processed more easily than atypical members e.g. pigeon vs ostrich
prototype theory
- concepts are represented by prototypes ‘’
- category membership depends on which prototype a particular thing is closest to
> depends on a measure of closeness
problems with prototype theory
conceptual combination:
- we don’t just use individual concepts, we combine them
- conceptual combination is a complex process: TIN + CAN = ‘tin can’ and TIN + MINE = ‘tin mine’
if the meaning of a concept is a prototype, it’s not clear how we define a combination of concepts
AD HOC concepts:
concepts and their corresponding categories that are put together on the fly, and therefore are not stored in memory
e.g. things to save in a fire - not stored in memory but do show prototype effects
Mathematical concepts:
- e.g. odd numbers - they show prototypicality effects 7 = more prototypical than 395839, but they have clear analytical definitions - (not divisible by 2) not defined by prototypes
AD HOC concepts
concepts and their corresponding categories that are put together on the fly, and therefore are not stored in memory
e.g. things to save in a fire - not stored in memory but do show prototype effects
mathematical concepts
Mathematical concepts:
- e.g. odd numbers - they show prototypicality effects 7 = more prototypical than 395839, but they have clear analytical definitions - (not divisible by 2) not defined by prototypes
‘theory’ theory
- everyday concepts are defined by their place in (lay) theories about the world and how it ‘works’
- deals with conceptual combination
e.g. lay theories tell us that can be made of tin but mines cannot
basic level categories
- concepts have hierarchy
- one of the levels is easiest to deal with - basic level categories
apple compared to bananas (Easy)
fruit - could compare types of apples to each other (harder)
types of concept
Concrete nouns:
Natural (people, animals, plants, natural objects)
Artefacts (man-made objects: table, building, etc)
Abstract:
scientific(gravity, evolution)
social/societal(family, law, gov)
Verbs: (events - hit, states - admire, processes - decay)
Adjectives(properties of nouns - red)
Adverbs:(properties of verbs, suddenly
Concepts that link ideas (and, because, before)
Lakoff and Johnson’s
‘metaphors we live by’
- we understand abstract concepts by networks of metaphorical links to concrete concepts
- e.g. an abstract state of being is a ‘container’
- how we talk about being contained is parallel to how we talk about the abstract state of ‘container’ - we use metaphors to understand states
- not just figures of speech - conceptual frameworks
embodiment
- traditional treatment of concepts is through formal analysis
- to understand concepts you must know how people interact with the world
- e.g. to know what is meant by ‘chair’ you do not only need to know that it is something to sit on but also understand how and why people sit down - (via experience)
- encoding of concepts is similar to our motor knowledge of how to interact with objects (e.g. chairs)
embodiment and the motor cortex: ‘an arm and a leg’ - supporting embodiment
- look at brain activity
- applied TMS to motor brain regions
- faster reactions to leg-related words with leg stimulation and faster reactions to arm-related words with arm stimulation
language is an integrated part of experience
The action compatibility effect (ACE)
Glenberg and colleagues
if you ask
‘you closed the drawer is an OK sentence = ps push lever to say OK
'’you opened the draw is an OK sentence’ = ps pull lever to say OK
action to respond is compatible with the action described
responses were also quicker than with opposite pairings (close/towards)
embodied cognition: Up and Down
Percher et al
respond: yes or no to ‘is it found in the sky’ or ‘is it found in the ocean’
- responses slower when location of the word does not match the expected position
e.g. sky words - top, whale - bottom but if opposite = slower
embodied cognition and shape image
Zwaan et al
- text representations should include perceptual properties, even if those properties are not mentioned
- sentence - followed by picture - ps had to name picture
- bird sat quietly = quicker if an image is of a bird sitting quietly rather than flying
embodied cognition - orientation
- put a pencil in pot - expect vertical
- put pencil in drawer - expect horizontal
some studies claimed the opposite effect but replication of this found original effect again
