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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Concepts, categories and exemplars
One of the most important areas of work in psychology is the study of categorization, which explains how we CATEGORIZE or classify items of everyday experience. (Wikipedia: ‘Categorization’.) The examples discussed are very familiar and mundane – things like birds, furniture and birthday parties – and the question is how we all manage to find our way through this familiar world so efficiently. How do we know what things are, and what good is this information? The answers are fairly obvious, and make good sense in terms of everyday experience.
Concepts and properties
The main point is that we have a vast stock of CONCEPTS, each of which has a set of things we know about it called PROPERTIES. (Wikipedia: ‘Concept’.) For example, we have the concept ‘bird’, with the following typical properties:
It flies.
It has wings.
It has feathers.
It lays eggs.
It has two legs.
It has a beak.
If you explore your knowledge of birds, no doubt you can extend this list of properties.
These properties define the general concept ‘bird’ and distinguish it from other concepts – ‘fish’, ‘aeroplane’ and so on. They all emerge in answer to the question: ‘what is a bird?’ You can explore the properties of any other concept in your mind by asking yourself what you know about it. What is furniture like? What is a birthday party like?
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