13/12/2012’s Reflection:

On Thursday, we talked about the ‘Concept’.

Concept:

i.                    Basic units of logical thinking or symbolic knowledge

ii.                  An idea about something that provides a means for understanding the world

iii.                Efficient processing of information

Two general kinds of concept:

Concrete Concepts	Abstract Concept
-Easily identified by physical appearance e.g: House	- Underlying notions not readily observable on the surface. e.g: Home

Concept Rules:

1.      Simple : Only one particular feature must be present. For example: red is colour for an apple.

2.     Conjunctive : Simultaneous presence of two or more common characteristics.

   For example: Aunt      -->  female

                                  -->  mom’s sister

3.    Disjunctive : Presence of one common characteristic or another or both.

   For example: Schizopheronic person --->  hears voices

                                                        --->  having distorted beliefs

4.       

Hierarcy of Concept
Superordinate	Vehicles
Basic Concepts	Boats
Subordinate	-Sailboat -Motoboat -Kayak

Feature Based Categories:

i.                    Defining features: Features must be present in all positive instances.

ii.                  Correlational features: Frequently found in positive instance but are not essential for concept membership.

iii.                Irrelevant features: Characteristics that are unrelated to membership in the category.

Prototype:

The original item on which subsequent models are based

For example: Birds, have feathers.