HSO 501

Cognitive Psychology
Monsoon Semester 2023-24
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad
 Concepts
• An internal, psychological representation of shared attributes

• Category: A class of concepts that share some properties

• Natural Category
• Artefact Category
• Nominal Category
 Classical Theory
• Concepts as definitions

• Definition: a rule containing features that are individually necessary and

jointly sufficient for category membership

• Defining features

• Classification Process:
• Consider the features in the concept and test whether they are matched by
properties of the object in consideration
 Classical Theory - Implications
• Easy to model in a formal way

• Category membership is binary

• Definition allows selection of all members of the category, and only its
members

• Classification is independent of context

• Hierarchy of inclusion relations

 Classical Theory - Weakness
• How is incorrect information processed – classified and put in hierarchy

• Impossible to identify necessary and sufficient conditions for many

concepts (e.g. Game)

• Lot of between and within subject variation

• Strict hierarchy not always followed

• Natural categories are difficult to define

 Prototype Theories
• Concepts are organized around prototypes

• Prototype is the most typical member of a category or a set of such

members

• Characteristic features: averaged description of members of the category

• Classification Process
• Features of the concept are matched against properties of the object
classified and overall similarity is measured
• Matching increases similarity and vice-versa
• If the similarity crosses a certain threshold – object is classified as member
Rosch’s categorization

Basic level - most important in classification

Participant typically:
• give more common features at basic level than a superordinate level
• respond faster with basic level and are more likely to choose basic level for classification
 Exemplar Theories
• Concepts are based on exemplars

• Exemplars: The many representations, in the long-term memory, of the

concept

• Millions of instances of a concept can be stored in the LTM

• Classification Process
• All instances of the are matched in parallel against the object using some
measure of similarity
• Instance most closely matched is retrieved
 Explanation-based Theories
• Concepts are learned on the basis of existing knowledge

• Gaps in earlier theories:

• Lack of familiarity (Hampton, 1998)
• Technically a member (Dolphin is a mammal)
• Technically not a member (Bat is not a bird)

• Similarity is shorthand and refers to ‘share some properties’ rather than

‘is similar to’
• By extension properties are limitless: Mobile phones vs Bullock-
carts
 Explanation-based Theories
• Concepts are learned on the basis of existing knowledge

• Classification Process
• Peoples use common-sense explanation based on their knowledge
• A man jumps into a garbage dump
• These explanations determine which attribute to choose for
classification in a particular instance
• Sparrow is a bird – hence it has feathers and beaks
Correlation r = 0.36

Explained variance =
13%
GCM Model - Generalized Context Model (Nosofsky, 1991)
Semantic Networks - Quillian, 1966

Participants verify the following sentences:

1. Canaries can sing

2. Canaries have feathers
3. Canaries have skin

Property not directly stored with a concept,

can be retrieved from a higher concept

Exceptions: Frequency of occurrence

matters
Apples are eaten
vs
Apple have dark-seeds
 Propositional Representations
• Complex sentences are remembered as a set of abstract meaning units
that represent simple assertions

• Language/Text is broken down into smaller meaning units – propositions

• Proposition is the smallest unit of knowledge that can stand separate

assertion (i.e. Can be verified as True / False)

• Example
• A red marble colour-of [marble, red]
• Jason’s shoes possess [Jason, shoes]
• Indian ocean name-of [ocean, India]
• John hit the ball hit [John, ball]
• Analyzing complex sentences:

• “Argentina, the team which won the FIFA 2022, was led by Messi.”

1. Argentina won the FIFA 2022

2. Messi was leading Argentina
3. FIFA was held in 2022

• Won [Argentina, FIFA 2022]

• Captain-of [Messi, Argentina]
• Year-of [FIFA, 2022]
 Schemas
• Mental representation that contains general information for how to think, behave, and
what to expect in a common situation

• Schemas have slots (attributes) and values

• Schema of a ‘House’
• Isa: Building
• Parts: Rooms
• Materials: Wood, bricks, stone
• Size: 100 - 10,000 sq. ft

• Differences from typical representation is explained by presence of default values

• Brewer and Treyens, 1981: people infer that an object has default values unless
explicitly stated
Participants:

1. Recalled typical office

items like type-writer

2. Also ‘recalled’ typical

office items that were not
present like books, lamps

3. Items inconsistent with a

typical office setting (e.g.
skull, wine) were less
likely to be recalled