Concepts

Concepts

1. Definitions

   • What are concepts?
     • Concepts and Cognition
       • Memory, Recognition, Language, Reasoning
     • Theories
       • Classical view
         • Overview
           • Common properties are all it needs (Hull 1920, Bruner et al 1956)
           • All or none
           • Similarity
         • Evaluation
           • Typicality (Rosch 1973)
           • Borderline cases
           • Intransivity (Hampton 1982)
       • Prototype view
         • Overview
           • Concepts organised around central prototype
           • Items similarity to prototype
           • Weighting of properties
         • Evaluation
           • Accounts for typicality
             • Sensitive to context
             • Changable v stable
           • Complex concepts
           • What is similar and dissimilar
       • Common-sense theory
         • Overview
           • Large knowledge structure
           • Explanation based (Murphy & Medin)
           • Role to explain behaviour
         • Evaluation
           • + age related change in children's categorisation
           • Unclear what constitutes a theory
           • Unclear about complex concepts
       • Psychological essentialism
         • Overview
           • try explaining deeper explanatory printicples
           • Essential properties
         • Evaluation
           • acknowledge importance of essential properties
           • Mixed empirical support
       • Why no single agreed theory?
         • Categorisation may not be a single process
         • Different theories may explain different types of categories
         • People categorise per their needs and experience
         • Not all concepts the same (defined/fuzzy)
   • What are categories?
     • Function of categorisation (Bruner et al 1956)
     • How categorisation is studied?
       • Techniques