From classical to prototype theory

 

In this blog, I would like to discuss about 4 major types of categorizations which are studied in psychology, and I would also like to put in my inputs on how learning about them helps us in understanding of social being. I would like to have my blog as a conversation between Raj and Simran (I am utilizing a psychology concept called "mere exposure effect", the familiarity of readers with the names would help me to convey my thoughts more easily) . Raj is a curious undergrad and Simran is his psychology instructor in this blog. The name of the characters having a conversation motivates us to think how the evolution of theories is similar and different from the evolution of movies. The similarity being building over the past and making corrections based on novel observations and the difference being the theories have improved a lot covering more cases but can we say the same thing about movies in general 😕 ? (The answer would be different for different readers)

Raj : So, we will be categorizing Categorization today?

Simran : That is an interesting thing to say. But it would be more like studying the evolving theories of categorization. So let us begin with the classical theory!! This term is quite popular in cognitive linguistics and dates back to ancient period in Greece. The theory is based on the views of Plato and Aristotle. Plato first introduced the concept of grouping the objects based on similarity in their properties and Aristotle further advanced in this domain by using consecutive narrowing questions for categorization. We all have played a game called “20 questions” some time or the other when we are allowed to ask questions “Is it living object?”, “Can it fly?” etc. to guess the object or the word. This is very similar to the approach discussed by Aristotle. In fact, this formed the basis of natural taxonomy where various taxonomic characters like morphological, physiological, behavioral characters are used for classifying the taxa. 

Aristotle depiction (Image credits - Pixta)

Raj : Wow, all seems so good about this. The first theory seems perfect.

Simran : Actually it is not, as according to this theory categories should be mutually exclusive and exhaustive. I bet you might have heard these terms in your set theory lectures in mathematics. But according to most modern theories, we don’t have such strict conditions.

Raj : Ahh I see!! Does the next theory correct all these drawbacks? I am curious to know.

Simran : You should figure that out. Let me tell you about the next theory. So, the name is Conceptual Clustering. You might have heard the term clustering which is quite popular in unsupervised machine learning applications. Let us not get into learning aspects, your computer science courses should be enough for them. So as per this theory we store our knowledge in form of concepts by first formulating the conceptual description of an object and then classify the entity according to our knowledge. 

Depiction of machine learning clustering (Image credits - HPCC systems)

Raj : Ohh !! I think I got the point. It is like I have thought of Dog as "animal, furry, four-legged, energetic" and the moment I see an entity with those features, I can classify it as a dog.

Simran : Yes you got it almost correctly but think that a wolf also fits in all those features so are those conditions sufficient. Therefore, the concepts we develop about different entities are sometimes not sufficient for their classification. In fact, any entity can be defined to have a level of fitness in a category. For instance, in the category you mentioned, a lion would fit in quite less as compared to a wolf. This is what is called as fuzzy set theory where entities can belong to one or more concept clusters.

Raj : So are these concept clusters very similar in each and every person. Will every person have same categorization of the entities?

Simran : For basic entities like dog, everybody would have very similar clusters but as the entities become more complicated and diverse, this is where our next and latest theory steps in which is called the “Prototype theory”. The theory states that every person develops a prototype for classification of objects which is based on his/her experience. It could be possible that a person’s prototype is for instance based on a Labrador for a dog and other person’s prototype for dog is based on a German shepherd based on their different experiences. And again, every entity would have a degree of resemblance to a prototype for instance lion would be far away from them, but a wolf would be closer.

Raj : It's fascinating to delve into the world of categorization and see how our minds organize information about the world around us. I never imagined that there could be so many layers and complexities to such a seemingly simple process.

Simran : Indeed, Raj, understanding how we categorize the world helps us grasp the intricacies of our social being. It influences how we perceive and interact with others, shaping our beliefs, attitudes, and even our prejudices. Knowing about these categorization theories can lead to a more empathetic and open-minded society. Keep exploring and embracing the wonders of psychology and the human mind. Goodbye!!

Raj : Goodbye, Simran! Take care!