Chapter 1. Concepts

1.1 Introduction

One of the hallmarks of human cognition is our ability to work with abstract concepts. Concepts, even concepts like justice, derive from actual real world examples, like learning to be fair as children. To create a concept, we have to form some idea that can relate to multiple real situations. As a result, it is easier to study how we form concepts using a visual stimulus. Take the letter A, for example. Given both upper and lower cases and all the available fonts, it is remarkable that we can so quickly and easily recognize an A as an A. One way to think about this ability is that we store a prototype for the letter A and use this prototype to understand all the individual examples. A prototype in this context is the standard representation from which the examples are derived. This experiment will examine some of the learning processes that play a part in this remarkable ability and examine if prototypes can help us understand this ability.

Posner, M. I., & Keele, S. W. (1968). On the genesis of abstract ideas. Journal of Experimental Psychology,77(3, Pt.1), 353-363.

1.2 Experiment Setup

1.3 Instructions

There are two phases in this experiment: the learning phase and the testing phase. The two phases will run exactly the same way, except that in the testing phase there will be some new random patterns as well as the three prototypes used to make all of the variations.

You will be presented with a pattern of dots drawn from one of three possible patterns. Your job is to indicate which of the three original patterns the dots came from. You may use the buttons below the pattern or the keyboard responses. If you do not know the correct answer, as at the beginning of the learning phase of the experiment, you will need to make a guess. After you respond, you will get feedback as to whether your response was correct.

1.4 Experiment

1.5 Results

1.6 Quiz