Mind can form object or event idea {conceptual learning}, by deriving abstract ideas and rules from perception.
comparison
Conceptual learning differs from action learning, conditioning, language learning, and social learning, such as imitation, modeling, and teaching.
process
To form concept, mind uses example object or event and then generalizes. Mind does not use abstract statements.
Mind compares later perceptions to generalized example, using both denotations and connotations for identification, categorization, and discrimination.
process: combination
New concepts can combine existing-concept parts. Methods of combining ideas are type, token, argument, function, predication, and quantification.
referents
Concept categories are actions, amounts, events, objects, places, paths, properties, and states. Concept categories include subjects, verbs, adjectives, and other syntactic categories.
Concrete concepts are easiest to learn. Spatial concepts are next easiest to learn. Number concepts are hardest to learn [Dehaene, 1997].
relations
Concepts depend on shared place or time {locational concept}, stimulus part {analytic concept}, idea or attribute {categorical concept} {superordinate concept}, or relation {relational concept}.
Older children use fewer relational concepts and more categorical and analytic concepts.
Inferences can be associations.
truth
Truth is judgment about concepts in conceptual structure.
status
Concepts can have good or poor articulation.
validity
Person's concepts can match other people's concepts.
biology
All mammals can form concepts.
Concepts can be communicable and so useful for others {accessibility, concept}. Models or interpretations can allow people to know possible worlds.
Object meaning depends on object actions, uses, movements, and interactions with other things {activity theory}. People develop meaning as they learn about motion types. Children learn how to move things and then build concepts of how things can move. Activities involve person's own movements and reactions and so are not merely symbolic.
Cognition involves different levels {cognitive unit}. Image is first-level unit. Object or image symbol is second-level unit. Concept or class of symbols, objects, or images is third-level unit. Rule about concept relations is fourth-level unit.
Concepts have forms, connect to other concepts using rules {conceptual well-formedness rule}, and belong to categories. These properties allow concept learning.
People have a meaningful visual-scene overview {gist}| [Biederman, 1972] [Hochstein and Ahissar, 2002] [Kreiman et al., 2000] [Mack and Rock, 1998] [Potter and Levy, 1969] [Wolfe and Bennett, 1997] [Wolfe, 1998] [Wolfe, 1999]. Perhaps, gist involves weak associations {proto-object} [Rensink, 2000]. Perhaps, gist involves weak associations {fringe consciousness} [Galin, 1997] [James, 1962].
People have thought formation process {ideation}|. New ideas combine existing-idea parts.
Animals seem to assume cognitive principle that effect requires cause {minimum sufficient causation}.
Mind can build object or event classes {categorization} {conceptualizing} {categorizing, learning} {category learning} and can apply verbal labels to objects or events. Categories have an overall concept.
categories
People typically use categories whose members have approximately same values for several independent attributes. People typically do not use categories based on relations between attributes. People typically do not use categories that have two member types, two relation types, or two attribute values.
Category members typically do not share necessary and sufficient attributes. Category members have many independent attributes, and members have different sets of values, with some values outside normal range. Different member pairs typically share different attribute values.
processes
Categorization can generalize several examples, combine existing categories, divide existing categories, or make analogies from existing categories to other objects or events. Learning generalizes unconsciously and consciously from specific objects, scenes, and situations to what they have in common, what is invariant, or what is similar. Perhaps, sensory cortex averages over examples.
processes: definition
To form category, propose category member, choose attribute, and use attribute value. For example, for bird, choose wing color, and use the color blue.
People typically do not define categories using non-member or opposite attribute value.
requirements
Categorization requires perceiving whole objects and their attributes or actions, understanding truth and falsehood, using reference and association, using words as symbols for things, knowing to which attributes people pay attention, and knowing what people already know.
development
Children first make semantic categories and then build grammatical categories.
Category items can be of same class {equivalence category} or be the same {identity category}. Items in equivalence category can have same attribute value or same attribute relations.
Find situation that makes one hypothesis true, find second situation that differs from first in only one way, and test hypothesis on second situation {conservative focusing}.
Find situation that matches one hypothesis, find any other situation, and test hypothesis on other situation {focus gambling}.
For situations, test all hypotheses {simultaneous scanning}.
For hypotheses, test all situations {successive scanning}.
6-Psychology-Cognition-Learning-Kinds
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Date Modified: 2022.0225