Chapter 8 Cognitive Psychology: Categorization

Goal-Derived Category

A category whose members are selected to satisfy a specified goal

Nearest-Neighbor Rule

A classification strategy that selects the category containing an item most similar to the classified item

Average Distance Rule

A classification strategy that selects the category containing items having the greatest average similarity to the classified item

Feature Frequency Rule

A classification strategy that selects the category having the most feature matches with the classified item

Prototype Rule

A classification strategy that selects the category whose prototype is the most similar to the classified item

Attribute Learning

A concept identification task in which people are told the logical rule (such as conjunctive) but have to discover the relevant attributes

Rule Learning

A concept identification task in which people are told the relevant attributes (such as small, square) but have to discover the logical rule

Superordinate Category

A large category at the top of a hierarchy, such as furniture, tools, and vehicles

Family Resemblance

A measure of how frequently the attributes of a category member are shared by other members of the category

Typicality

A measure of how well a category member represents that category

Exemplar Model

A model that proposes that patterns are recognized by comparing their similarity to exemplars

Logical Rule

A rule based on logical relations. Includes conjunctive, disjunctive, conditional, and bi-conditional rules.

Disjunctive Rule

A rule that uses logical relation or to relate stimulus attributes, such as small or square

Conjunctive Rule

A rule that uses the logical relation and to relate stimulus attributes such as small and square

Subordinate Category

A small category at the bottom of a hierarchy, such as lamp table, jigsaw, and pickup truck

Concept Identification

A task that requires deciding weather an item is an example of a concept, where concepts are typically defined by logical rules

Continuos Dimension

An attribute that an take on any value along a dimension

Stereotype

An attribute value believed to be representative of social categories

Ideal

An attribute value that relates to the goal of a goal-derived category

Basic-Level Category

An intermediate category in the middle of a hierarchy, such as table, saw, and truck

Prototype

An item that typifies the members in a category and is used to represent the category

Hierarchically Organized

An organizing strategy in which larger categories are partitioned into smaller categories

Semantic Dementia

Progressive deterioration of knowledge about words and objects