Concepts

and
Categorisation
Shreshta Chattopadhyay, MPhil (Cl Psy)
Concepts and Categorisation: Function of Concepts. Structure of Natural Objects Categories.
Association and Hypothesis Testing. Use of Categories in Reasoning.

Problem Solving. Types of Problem. Understanding the Problem. Strategies of Problem Solving (Sub
Goals, Analogues). Problem Solving Approaches. Gestalt Newell and Simon’s Theory. Factors that
Influence Problem Solving. Creativity and Problem Solving.
Theoretical Descriptions of the Nature of Concepts
The Classical View
The Prototype View
The Exemplar View
The Schemata View
The Knowledge-Based View

Forming New Concepts and Classifying New Instances

Concept Attainment Strategies Acquiring Prototypes
Implicit Concept Learning Using and Forming Scripts Psychological Essentialism
Concepts and Categories differentiation
Concept:-

● Mental representation of some object, event or Category:-

pattern that has stored in it much of the knowledge
typically thought relevant to that object, event or ● Class of similar things (objects or entities)
pattern. that share one of two things: either an essential
● Most people’s concept of “dog,” for example, core or some similarity in perceptual,
would include information to the effect that a dog biological or functional properties (Lin &
is an animal, has four legs and a tail, has a Murphy, 2001)
reputation as “man’s best friend,” is a com- mon
pet, and so on. ● Exists objectively in the world.
● Mental representations of categories. ● Helps us to make predictions and act
● Helps us to establish order in our knowledge base. accordingly.
● Allows us to categorise or sort things so that we are ● The act of interpretation, an act of “seeing
able to treat never-before encountered objects in a something as X” rather than simply seeing it
similar fashion to the way we encounter familiar (Wittgenstein, 1953), is fundamentally an act
objects that we perceive as belonging to the same of categorization.
set.
Benefits of concepts and categorisation

● Prevents us from getting overwhelmed by the

sheer diversity of what we experience.
● Our memory has limitations. Concept formation
and subsequent categorisation helps in reducing
the load.
● Language would be staggeringly complex and
communication virtually impossible without
concept and categorisation.
Concepts help us establish order in our knowledge base (Medin & Smith, 1984).

Concepts also allow us to categorize, giving us mental “buckets” in which to sort the things we
encounter, letting us treat new, never-before-encountered things in the same way we treat
familiar things that we perceive to be in the same set (Neisser, 1987).
 Functions of Concepts
In cognitive psychology, concepts are fundamental mental representations that allow us to
categorize and interpret the world around us. They are the building blocks of thinking, helping
to organize information and facilitate higher-order cognitive processes. Understanding how
concepts function in thinking is critical to grasping human cognition.
1. Simplifying Information: By grouping objects or experiences into categories, concepts help reduce the
cognitive load required to process information. For instance, instead of processing every individual object
you encounter as something new, you can categorize it into a broader class (e.g., "dog," "fruit").
2. Efficient Decision Making: When faced with a decision, using concepts allows for quicker choices based on
prior knowledge about categories rather than analyzing each new instance. For example, when shopping for
fruit, you don’t need to learn everything about a new apple—you can apply your concept of "apple" to
decide whether it's ripe.
Contd…
3. Reducing Complexity: Concepts allow us to reduce the complexity of the world by organizing it into
manageable units. This makes thinking more efficient, allowing us to store and retrieve large amounts of
information without overwhelming the mind. For example, the concept of "furniture" includes chairs, tables,
and sofas, simplifying our understanding of different types of objects.

4. Minimizing Cognitive Effort: Instead of processing every single instance of an object or event as new, we
can apply existing concepts, which reduces the need for constant relearning.
5. Filling in Missing Information: When we encounter partial information, concepts allow us to infer the
missing parts. For example, if you hear a bark and see a tail, your concept of "dog" helps you infer that it is a
dog, even if you can’t see the entire animal.
6. Predicting Future Events: Concepts enable us to predict what will happen based on past experiences. For
example, if you know the concept of "rainstorm," you can predict that dark clouds may indicate rain, even
before it starts.
Contd…

In cognitive psychology, concepts are indispensable tools for simplifying the complexity of the world,
supporting communication, facilitating learning, and aiding in decision-making and problem-solving. They
enable humans to organize experiences, abstract commonalities, and engage in higher-level thinking.
Without concepts, our cognitive processes would be slow, inefficient, and fragmented, making it difficult
to navigate the world effectively.
Theoretical Descriptions of the Nature of Concepts

We have a powerful impulse to interpret our world.

Five distinct proposals on how concepts are represented and structured.

Each one provides a different answer to the question “What information do we

have when we have a particular concept?”
Each proposal will therefore have different implications for the question of how
concepts are formed, acquired, or learned.
Approaches to concept formation:-
According to Komatsu (1992) the 5 approaches to concept formation may be divided into two major
categories:-
1. Similarity based category includes 2. The Explanation based category views
approaches in which categorisation is assumed people as classifying instances based on
to be based on the similarity of an instance to meaningful relationships among instances and
some abstract specification of the category categories.
(like a definition or a prototype) or to one or
more stored exemplars. These include:-

● Schemata approach/ Scripts view (few aspects)

These include:-
● Knowledge based view (few aspects)
● Classical approach
● Prototype approach
● Exemplar Approach
Classical Approach (Medin, 1989)

● All examples or instances of a concept share fundamental characteristics or features.

● The features represented are individually necessary and collectively sufficient.
● To say a feature is individually necessary is to say that each example must have the
feature if it is to be regarded as a member of the concept. For example, “has three
sides” is a necessary feature of the concept triangle; things that do not have three
sides are automatically disqualified from being triangles.
● To say that a set of features is collectively sufficient is to say that anything with each
feature in the set is automatically an instance of the concept. For example, the set of
features “has three sides” and “closed, geometric figure” is sufficient to specify a
triangle; anything that has both is a triangle.
Classical Approach (Medin, 1989)
• The classical view of concepts has several
implications. First, it assumes that concepts
mentally represent lists of features. That is,
concepts are not representations of specific
examples but rather abstractions containing
information about properties and characteristics
that all examples must have.
Classical Approach (Medin, 1989)

● Criticism: Could not justify people’s

judgement of typicality or ‘goodness’.

● Take a look at the birdiness rankings

(Malt and Smith 1984) →
Prototype View
● It denies the existence of necessary and sufficient feature lists (except for a
limited number of concepts such as mathematical ones), rather refers to
concepts as a different sort of abstraction.
● These researchers believe in the existence of mental prototypes, i.e. idealised
representations of some class of objects or events.
● They propagated that no individual feature or aspect (except very trivial ones) need
to be present in the instance for it to be counted as a member of a category, rather,
the more characteristic features or aspects an instance has, the more likely it
will be considered as a member of that category.
 Prototype View
● Concepts which have one or more “core”
representations based on a family
resemblance structure but have no rigid
boundaries.

● However, our perception depends a lot on

how the thing may function in the
world.

● Criticism: Challenges with categories

and typicality of concepts.

● Unlike the classical view, which sets

constraints or boundaries around
which things can and can’t belong to a
category, the prototype view does not
specify clear constraints.
Prototype View
Rosch and her colleagues divided categories
into basic, subordinate and superordinate
levels.
Rosch describes these variations within
categories as representing differences in
prototypicality.
High prototypicality means that the category
member closely resembles the category
prototype (it is like a “typical” member of
the category).
Low prototypicality means that the category
member does not resemble a typical
member of the category.
HOW DO WE IDENTIFY THE
POMERANIAN AS A DOG AND
NOT A CAT?
Family Resemblance
The prototype view of concepts and categories often refers to the family re-
semblance structure of concepts (Wittgenstein, 1953), a structure in which each
member has a number of features, sharing different features with differ- ent
members. Few, if any, features are shared by every single member of the category;
however, the more features a member possesses, the more typical it is.
The prototype view of concepts explains typicality effects by reference to family
resemblance. The idea is that the more characteristic features an instance of a
concept has, the stronger the family resemblance between that instance and other
instances, and therefore the more typical an instance it is. Presumably, then, a robin
is thought of as a more typical bird than a penguin because the robin possesses more
characteristic bird features, such as “is small,” “flies,” “eats worms,” and “lives in a
tree.”
Exemplar View
● The exemplar view of concepts asserts that concepts include representations of at least some
actual individual instances, i.e., examples of an instance are stored rather than prototypes.
● People categorize new instances by comparing them to representations of previously stored
instances or examples, called exemplars.
● So, in trying to retrieve information about a typical instance, it is faster to find very similar
stored exemplars. Atypical instances, in contrast, being rather dissimilar from stored exemplars,
take longer to process.
● The biggest problem with the exemplar view is that, like the prototype view, it is too
unconstrained. It fails to specify, for example, which instances will eventually be stored as
exemplars and which will not. It also does not explain how different exemplars are “called to
mind” at the time of categorization.
The exemplar approach to categorization, like the prototype approach, involves de- determining
whether an object is similar to a standard object. However, whereas the standard for the
prototype approach is a single “average” member of the category, the standard for the exemplar
approach involves many examples, each one called an exemplar.

Exemplars are actual members of the category that a person has encountered in the past. Thus,
deciding whether a particular animal is a dog involves comparing it to dogs that have been
experienced in the past.

The exemplar approach can explain many of Rosch’s results, which were used to support the prototype
approach.

Thus, a sparrow is similar to many exemplars, so it is classified faster than a penguin, which is similar to few
exemplars.
Which is better? Prototype or Exemplar
The prototype and exemplar approaches to categorization are both based on the idea that membership
in a category can be determined by comparing an object to a “standard” that represents the category.
The two approaches differ, however, in their definition of the nature of the standard. The prototype
approach states that the standard is determined by averaging category members. The exemplar
approach states that the standard is created by considering a number of typical members of a category.

The basic idea behind the prototype approach to categorization is that we decide whether an object
belongs to a category by determining whether it is similar to a standard representation of the category
called a prototype.
A prototype is formed by averaging the category members we have encountered in the past (Rosch,
1973). For example, the prototype for the category birds might be based on some of the birds you
usually see, such as sparrows, robins, and blue jays, but doesn’t necessarily look exactly like a particular
type of bird. Thus, the prototype is not an actual member of the category, but is an “average”
representation of the category .
While a prototype is an abstract average of the members of a category, an exemplar is an
actual member of a category, pulled from memory. While prototypes are economical—meaning
they are more conducive to quick judgments—exemplars are less so.
The Schemata View

Attending college

Orientation to college

Schemata (meeting a college

roommate for the first time)
Schemata View
The notion of schemata as underlying organizational units of memory has had
significant impact on cognitive psychologists’ thinking about how memory is
organized and concepts represented.

The schemata view of concepts is that concepts are schemata—frameworks of

knowledge that have roles, slots, variables, and so on. Schemata can embed
themselves in one another hierarchically. Thus any schema can have sub-
schemata and/or superschemata. The “meeting a college roommate for the first
time” schema can be a subschema of an “orientation to college” schema, which
may be embedded in an “attending college” schema, and so on. Similarly, the
“meeting a college roommate for the first time” schema may contain sub-
schemata of “dorm room,” “meeting new person,” and “roommate” embedded
within it.
The Knowledge Based View
The idea of the knowledge-based view of concepts is that a person classifying objects
and events doesn’t just compare features or physical aspects of the objects and events to
features or aspects of stored representations. Instead, the person uses his or her
knowledge of how the concept is organized to justify the classification and to explain why
certain in- stances happen to go together in the same category.
The knowledge-based view helps explain how an apparently disparate collection of
objects can form a coherent category in particular circumstances.

Example: Consider the category comprising children, pets, photo albums, family
heirlooms, and cash. On the face of it, these things don’t seem to go together very well,
but in the context of a scenario in which a fire is about to engulf a house, these things fall
neatly into the cate- gory “things to save.” We know that each object mentioned is
precious to its owner or parents and also irreplaceable. Notice, however, that the category
becomes coherent only when we know its purpose.
Komatsu (1992) defined a different type of approach to concepts, which
he called the explanation-based category, comprising some of the
schemata/scripts view and some of the knowledge-based view.

In this approach to the study of concepts, people are seen as basing

classifications on meaningful relationships among instances and
categories. The contrast between the similarity-based and the
explanation-based approaches has to do with the degree to which people
focus on superficial, perceptual information about a particular object
versus the degree to which they focus on deeper, knowledge-derived
information about an object’s function or role.
Forming New Concepts
Forming New Concepts and Classifying New Instances
Concept Attainment Strategies
Acquiring Prototypes
Implicit Concept Learning
Using and Forming Scripts
Psychological Essentialism

To have a concept of something is to group similar things together, to treat in

more or less similar ways members of the category that the concept includes.

To form a concept, people must have some basis for generalization, for
grouping certain things but not others together.
Concept attainment strategies (Bruner's Theory of Concept
formation, 1956)
Bruner considered that human brain has three modes of representation. Modes of
representation are the way in which information or knowledge are stored and encoded
in memory. These were:-

Enactive Representation (Action based): This mode of representation involves learning

through actions and physical experiences. In the enactive mode, individuals acquire
knowledge by physically interacting with objects or the environment.

For example, a child learns the concept of "hot" by touching a stove and feeling the heat.
Enactive representation is often the initial stage of concept formation, especially in young
children.
Concept attainment strategies (Bruner's Theory o􏰁 Concept formation,
1956)
Iconic Representation (Image based): In this mode, knowledge is represented visually or
through mental images. Individuals create mental pictures or images in their minds to
understand concepts.

For instance, when you think of a "cat," an image of a cat may come to mind. Iconic
representation is a more abstract and visual way of understanding ideas or concepts.

Symbolic Representation (Language Based): Symbolic representation involves the use of

symbols, such as words, mathematical symbols, or abstract representations to convey and
understand knowledge.

For example, when you see the word "dog," you understand it as representing a specific type of
animal. Symbolic representation is the most abstract and complex mode of representation and is
central to higher-order thinking and language-based learning.
He also discussed two more principles:-
Scaffolding

Spiral Curriculum

Bruner's theory has been influential in developing teaching

strategies such as scaffolding and spiral curriculum, where

knowledge is built incrementally, and concepts are revisited

with increasing complexity over time.

Scaffolding
Scaffolding is a concept in education and psychology that was popularized by Bruner and developed
further by other theorists, such as Lev Vygotsky.
Scaffolding refers to the support provided to learners by more knowledgeable individuals, often
teachers or peers, to help them learn and problem-solve within their zone of proximal development.
It is an instructional technique where a teacher provides successive levels of temporary support to
help students achieve higher levels of understanding or skill acquisition. As learners become more
proficient, the support (scaffold) is gradually removed, allowing them to operate independently.

Key points about scaffolding include:

● Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): This is the difference between what a learner can do
independently and what they can achieve with support. Scaffolding takes place within the ZPD
to guide learners toward more advanced understanding and skills.
Scaffolding
● Gradual Release: Scaffolding involves gradually transferring responsibility from the
teacher or expert to the learner. Initially, the teacher provides more support, and as the
learner gains competence, the support decreases.
● Feedback and Guidance: Scaffolding may include providing hints, feedback,
modeling, asking leading questions, and breaking down complex tasks into smaller,
manageable steps.

Scaffolding is a dynamic process that adapts to the learner's needs, promoting active
engagement and effective learning.
Examples of Scaffolding:
•Modeling: The teacher first demonstrates how to perform a task. For instance, a math teacher might
solve a problem on the board while explaining the steps.
•Hints and Clues: Instead of providing the answer, the teacher might give hints or ask guiding questions to
help the student reach the answer.
•Breaking Tasks into Smaller Pieces: If a student struggles with a complex task, the teacher can break it
down into smaller, more manageable parts.
Benefits of Scaffolding:
•Promotes deeper understanding.
•Encourages independent learning over time.
•Adapts to the needs and pace of individual learners.
Spiral Curriculum
The spiral curriculum is an educational approach that Bruner advocated. It suggests that students should revisit
topics or concepts multiple times, with each encounter being more complex than the previous one.
The Spiral Curriculum is an instructional approach where complex topics are introduced early in a simple form
and revisited in increasing depth over time. The key idea is that learners encounter the same topics multiple
times, each time with more complexity, thereby reinforcing previous learning and building on it.
Here's how it works:

● Repetition and Depth: Students encounter the same core topics at different stages in their
education, and each time they revisit the subject, they explore it in greater depth and complexity. This
approach helps build a strong foundation and allows for deeper understanding.

● Building on Prior Knowledge: The spiral curriculum acknowledges that learners' understanding of a concept
becomes more sophisticated as they grow and acquire new knowledge. Each encounter with the concept
builds upon what they already know.
Spiral Curriculum
● Reinforcement and Mastery: By revisiting topics, students have more opportunities to reinforce
their understanding, master the content, and apply it in new contexts. This approach fosters a
more robust and lasting grasp of the subject matter.

The spiral curriculum encourages a holistic understanding of concepts and supports long-term
retention and application of knowledge. It aligns with Bruner's belief in the importance of
learning through active discovery and engagement.
Benefits of Spiral Curriculum:
•Reinforces learning through repetition.
•Helps students master complex concepts by building on earlier, simpler concepts.
•Encourages long-term retention of knowledge.
•Facilitates the connection between old and new knowledge, promoting a deeper understanding.
Concept Formation strategies (Bruner, 1956)

1. Simultaneous Scanning:

● Simultaneous scanning involves examining all available information or elements of a problem

or concept at once. Learners who use this strategy tend to consider all relevant factors
simultaneously. They take in the "big picture" before breaking it down into smaller
components.

Example: When learning a new language, a learner employing simultaneous scanning would
initially try to grasp the overall structure, grammar, and vocabulary. They might look at
sentences or paragraphs in their entirety to understand the context and patterns before delving
into individual words or grammar rules.
2. Successive Scanning:
● Successive scanning, on the other hand, involves a step-by-step or sequential
approach to problem-solving or concept formation. Learners who use this
strategy prefer to break a problem or concept into smaller, manageable parts and
examine them one at a time.
Example: When solving a complex math problem, a student using successive
scanning would begin by breaking down the problem into smaller steps. They
would solve each step before moving on to the next, gradually building their
understanding and arriving at the solution. This approach is more systematic and
may be preferred for tasks that are highly structured.
3.Conservative Focusing:

● Conservative focusing is a strategy where the learner initially pays attention to a limited set
of factors or variables, often focusing on the most salient or relevant information. This
approach can be helpful in preventing cognitive overload and allows learners to concentrate
on essential aspects.

Example: When analyzing a historical event, a student using conservative focusing might start by
examining key figures, dates, and significant events without getting overwhelmed by minor
details. Once they have a firm grasp of the core elements, they can delve into more specific details
and nuances.

It's important to note that individuals may use a combination of these strategies depending on the
context and the nature of the learning task. Bruner's point was not to prescribe one strategy over
another but to recognize that different learning situations may call for different cognitive approaches.
The choice of strategy may depend on the complexity of the concept being learned, the learner's
prior knowledge, and their individual learning style.
Acquiring Prototypes
In a landmark experiment conducted by David E. Rumelhart, James L. McClelland, and the cognitive
scientists Michael I. Posner and Steven E. Keele, participants were trained to categorize artificial stimuli
into two groups, "A" or "B," based on their features. The stimuli were essentially artificial shapes with
various combinations of geometric elements.
The experiment indicated that we do acquire prototypes through the following process:-
● Initial Learning: During the initial phase of the experiment, participants were exposed to a set of
these artificial stimuli and gradually learned to categorize them into the "A" or "B" groups based on
their features.
● Prototype Formation: As participants continued to learn and practice, they implicitly formed
prototypes for each category. These prototypes represented the typical or central features of each
category. For example, the prototype for category "A" might include common elements like specific
angles, line lengths, or other geometric properties.
Generalization and Recognition: Over time, participants became better at recognizing
and categorizing new stimuli that were similar to the prototypes they had implicitly
formed. Even when presented with novel shapes that they hadn't seen before, they could
classify them into the appropriate category based on their resemblance to the prototypes.

Prototype Distortion: The experiment also revealed that prototypes were not static and
rigid. They could adapt and evolve as participants encountered new stimuli.

In other words, the prototypes were dynamic representations that changed as participants
gained more experience and encountered a broader range of examples.
Acquiring Prototypes
This experiment provided evidence for the acquisition of prototypes, demonstrating that
our cognitive processes involve the development of mental representations that capture the
central characteristics of categories.

It also highlighted the role of generalization in categorization, as people can use their
acquired prototypes to make inferences about new and unfamiliar items within a category
based on their resemblance to the prototype.

The experiment's findings have had significant implications for our understanding of
cognitive processes, memory, and concept formation.
Implicit Concept Learning
Arthur Reber (1967, 1976) conducted a series of studies in which the participants were
given strings of letters to learn. Unknown to people in some of the experimental groups,
the letters were not randomly chosen but were generated by a structure sharing
similarities with certain kinds of language grammar.

The main purpose of Reber's grammar experiment was to explore the ability of
participants to implicitly learn and recognize complex grammatical patterns without
conscious awareness.

Implicit concept learning refers to the process by which individuals acquire knowledge
about categories, rules, or relationships without explicit awareness or intention. This
learning happens unconsciously, allowing people to grasp complex patterns or concepts
through exposure and experience rather than through direct instruction or conscious
effort.
Rebers Grammar Experiment (1960s)
In the experiment, participants were exposed to strings of letters that followed a set of hidden rules known
as an artificial grammar. These letter strings were generated based on a grammar system that participants
were not informed about.

Participants were shown a series of letter strings that conformed to this hidden grammar. They were asked to
memorize the strings but were not told anything about the underlying rules or structure. The task appeared
to be simple memorization, but the real goal was to see if participants would implicitly absorb the
underlying grammar patterns.

After the training phase, participants were presented with new letter strings, some of which followed the
same hidden grammar rules and some that did not. They were then asked to judge whether each new string
conformed to the same set of rules as the ones they had previously seen.

Findings: Remarkably, participants were able to accurately identify new letter strings that followed the
grammar, even though they could not explicitly articulate the rules governing the strings. This demonstrated
that they had learned the grammar implicitly, without conscious awareness of the learning process.
Implicit Concept Learning
The key findings of Reber's grammar experiment were as follows:
Implicit Learning: Participants were able to distinguish between grammatical and
non-grammatical sequences despite not consciously understanding the rules. This
demonstrated implicit learning, where individuals acquire knowledge without
explicit awareness.

Pattern Recognition: Participants showed a preference for sequences that followed

the hidden grammar. They could recognize the patterns they had learned during the
training phase.
Implicit Concept Learning
Generalization: Participants demonstrated the ability to generalize their knowledge to
new, previously unseen sequences. They could apply the grammar rules to classify new
sequences as either "grammatical" or "ungrammatical."
Sensitivity to Regularities: The experiment highlighted the human brain's capacity to
detect and process complex patterns and regularities even in unfamiliar and abstract
contexts.
Surprisingly, participants who were told ahead of time that letter strings followed certain
complex rules remembered strings less well than participants who were simply asked to
memorize particular letter strings but were not told anything about the strings’ following a
structure.
Implicit Concept Learning
Reber concluded that when complex underlying structures exist (such as his grammar), people
are better off memorizing exemplars than trying to figure out what the structure is, primarily
because participants who try to guess the structure often induce or invent incorrect rules or
structures.

Supporting the previous findings, Brooks (1978, 1987) mentioned that this was non-
analytic concept formation also called implicit learning.

Nonanalytic concept formation, also sometimes called implicit learning, requires

that people pay attention to individual exemplars, storing information about and
representations of them in memory.

Later classification is done by comparing new instances to the representations,

drawing analogies between new and old.
Kemler Nelson (1984) believed that nonanalytic concept formation is especially likely
with materials that have strong family resemblance structures. Participants in one of her
experiments were presented with artificial faces.
The faces varied on four attributes—curliness of hair, length of nose, size of ears, and
breadth of mustache—with each at- tribute having three values (such as slightly curly
mustache, medium curly mus- tache, and very curly moustache).
Participants learned which faces belonged to the category “doctors” and which to the
category “policemen.” Faces presented during the learning phase were carefully chosen,
such that one attribute distinguished between the two categories (in this example, length
of nose: Doctors have long noses; policemen, short ones).

At the same time, the two categories differed in their family resemblance structure,
although the difference was not absolute. In this example, doctors tend to have slightly
curly moustaches, large ears, and broad moustaches, and policemen, very curly mus-
taches, small ears, and thinner moustaches, although not every instance shared all these
features.
In the subsequent test phase, participants were presented with a number of test faces,
including two “critical” test faces, and were asked to classify each one. These faces pitted
the criterion feature (such as length of nose) against the family resemblance structure. The
way people classified these faces revealed the basis of their classification: If they used a
criterion feature, they classified the faces one way; if they used family resemblance
structure, they were more likely to make a different classification.
Some of Kemler Nelson’s (1984) participants were explicitly told to search for a means of
distinguishing between doctors and policemen; others were simply asked to learn to
recognize the pictures.
Kemler Nelson found the latter group was especially likely to use family resemblance
structure as a basis for classification; approximately 60% did so. Of those in the former
group, only 46% used that approach.
USING
SCRIPTS
Using Scripts
● Bower, Black, and Turner (1979) investigated how much people typically use scripts.
● They first asked participants to write their scripts for a number of specific events:
going to a restaurant, attending a lecture, getting up in the morning, grocery shopping,
visiting a doctor.
● They compared the notes generated by all the participants and found a high degree of
overlap in what people mentioned.
● The participants generally agreed about in which characters to describe, which
props and actions to mention, and the orders different actions would occur.
● The investigators also found a high degree of agreement in description level.
Thus most people would mention “eating the food” instead of “picking up a
spoon, dipping it into soup, raising the spoon to lips, and sipping.”
Using Scripts
Rizzella and O’Brien (2002) found that when people were given a narrative text to read
and remember, central concepts relevant to the script (such as in a restaurant script,
being served a meal) were typically better remembered than concepts of less importance
to the script (such as giving one’s name to a hostess).
Psychological Essentialism
Psychological essentialism is a cognitive tendency in which people believe that categories
or groups of things have underlying, unobservable, and immutable characteristics that
define their true nature.
Psychological essentialism is a way humans represent and classify things. The brain
groups things as if each has an underlying essence which, though invisible, can be used to
predict characteristics the members of that group would have in common.

This belief often leads individuals to think of categories as having a fixed and
unchangeable essence, making them resistant to change or variation.

The concept of psychological essentialism can be further explained by considering the

distinctions between nominal kinds, natural kinds, and artifact concepts.
Psychological Essentialism
1. Nominal Kinds:

● Nominal kinds are categories based on arbitrary labels or human conventions. The criteria for
membership in nominal kinds are not rooted in inherent, essential characteristics.

Example: The category "colors" is a nominal kind. We define colors based on human perception and
language, and there is no intrinsic essence that defines what makes a color. This is in contrast to natural
kinds.

2. Natural Kinds:

● Natural kinds are categories that are believed to have inherent, essential characteristics that define their
true nature. These categories are thought to exist independently of human conventions.

● Essentialized categories reflect real, objective, fundamental distinctions found in nature, instead of
conventions that vary across individuals or contexts.

Example: In the case of natural kinds, people might think of "species" in biology as having essential
characteristics that define what makes a species. For instance, people might believe that a "dog" has essential
features that distinguish it from other species.
Psychological Essentialism
3. Artifact Concepts:
● Artifact concepts refer to categories that are not naturally occurring but are
human-made or constructed. These categories are often defined by human
intentions and design.

● Artifact concepts, in contrast, may highlight information about the object’s

purpose or function and may be adequately described only within the
knowledge-based approach.

Example: "Furniture" is an artifact concept. The category of furniture is created by

humans to classify items like chairs, tables, and sofas that serve specific purposes in
our daily lives. The criteria for what constitutes furniture are not based on inherent,
essential features but on human usage and design.
Psychological Essentialism
How Psychological Essentialism Relates to These Concepts:
● Psychological essentialism is particularly strong when applied to natural kinds.
People tend to believe that natural kinds, such as animals or living organisms, have
immutable and essential characteristics that define their identity.
● For nominal kinds and artifact concepts, essentialist thinking is less likely because
these categories are more clearly seen as human conventions and can vary based on
cultural, historical, or contextual factors.
● However, it's essential to recognize that essentialism can still influence how people
perceive and categorize even nominal kinds and artifact concepts, particularly when
they perceive these categories as having relatively stable and unchangeable
boundaries.
Assumptions
Medin proposed a framework he called psychological essentialism and said that people
generally act as if objects, people, or events have certain essences or underlying natures
that make them what they are. Presumably, for instance, a human being is a human being
by virtue of having a certain molecular structure.

That essence constrains or limits the kinds of variation that different instances of a
category can show. So, for instance, people can vary in height, weight, hair color, eye
color, bone structure, and the like, but they must have certain other properties in common
by virtue of the underlying essence they share.
People’s theories about the essences of various categories help them connect deeper
properties (such as the structure of DNA) to more superficial properties (such as eye color
or hair color).