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Chapter Summary
This chapter examines the nature of concepts and how we acquire and use them. Concepts are used by individuals to categorize events or objects, and each concept has attributes by which they are classified. There are many ways that attributes can be used to form concepts, including conjunctive, disjunctive, and relational. A criterial attribute, for instance, is a prerequisite to being part of a particular concept.
Both selection and reception tasks can be used to study concepts. In selection tasks, where participants select the instances, individuals generally use conservative focusing in order to determine what the particular concept is. However, this is not the only strategy that can be applied. Participants can also make use of focus gambling, simultaneous scanning, and successive scanning. How-ever, in reception tasks, where the experimenter is in control of the order of presentation, participants use two different strategies: wholist or partist. The wholist strategy is when a person initially hypothesizes that all attributes are members of the concept, while a partist strategy involves the hypothesis that only some of the attributes are members of the concept. The laboratory research that led to many of these concepts has been criticized for a lack of ecological validity. It was argued that the formation of real world concepts is much more complex and should be studied using concepts that people actually use.
By studying the ways in which people attain knowledge about artificial grammars, Reber distinguished implicit and explicit learning, referring to learning without intentionality versus intentional learning, respectively. In implicit learning conditions, individuals often perform as well as others in explicit learning groups, which suggests that they know something without being able to pinpoint exactly what it is that they know (tacit knowledge). Reber maintained that the cognitive unconscious has a key function in cognition, such as in language acquisition. However, later researchers have de-emphasized the importance of unconscious cognitive processes, showing that implicit learning can be accompanied by awareness.
Wittgenstein has argued that rather than sharing common features, concepts have family re-semblances, features that overlap in a complicated manner. Following this argument, Rosch, in studying structures of colour categories, maintained that some instances are more prototypical (representative) than others. Furthermore, she developed two principles important to concept use: cognitive economy and perceived world structure (correlated attributes). Concepts may be organized vertically (superordinate, basic, and subordinate levels) and horizontally (graded structure). Examples of concepts that have a graded structure are goal-derived categories (ad hoc categories).
It has also been argued that cognition has a goal of facilitating interaction with the environment—in other words, that it is embodied. Similarly, categories can be created based on a specific need or purpose based on a particular occasion. Such goal-derived categories may contain members with no attributes in common. The act of conceptualizing enables people to construct temporary categories and also involves perceptual symbol systems, effectively connecting perception with action. As demonstrated by studies on category-specific deficits (selective deficits in knowledge resulting from brain damage), a mere sensory-functional theory is insufficient to account for conceptual deficits. Primary metaphors connect sensory-motor and other forms of experience. In fact, certain expressions become so common that they create double-function words.
Our understanding of biology depends on a conceptual model that is accountable for domain-specific knowledge. Folk biology, or the concepts that people make use of to understand living things, is domain-specific. Similarly, each culture has a folk taxonomy, or a hierarchal classification system. A case study of Adam provided evidence for the domain-specific module being responsible for folk biology. Adam had brain damage when he was only one day old, and many years later showed a selective deficit for naming living things.
Chapter Objectives
- To review and evaluate classical approaches to the study of concept attainment.
- To review experiments used to study complex rules.
- To describe vertical and horizontal dimensions of concept organization.
- To outline how cognition is embodied.
- To examine and provide evidence for the theory of idealized cognitive models.
- To consider how folk biology relates to concept attainment.