Showing papers on "Categorization published in 1986"
TL;DR: In this paper, a unified quantitative approach to modeling subjects' identification and categorization of multidimensional perceptual stimuli is proposed and tested, where subjects identify and categorize the same set of perceptually confusable stimuli varying on separable dimensions.
Abstract: A unified quantitative approach to modeling subjects' identification and categorization of multidimensional perceptual stimuli is proposed and tested. Two subjects identified and categorized the same set of perceptually confusable stimuli varying on separable dimensions. The identification data were modeled using Sbepard's (1957) multidimensional scaling-choice framework. This framework was then extended to model the subjects' categorization performance. The categorization model, which generalizes the context theory of classification developed by Medin and Schaffer (1978), assumes that subjects store category exemplars in memory. Classification decisions are based on the similarity of stimuli to the stored exemplars. It is assumed that the same multidimensional perceptual representation underlies performance in both the identification and Categorization paradigms. However, because of the influence of selective attention, similarity relationships change systematically across the two paradigrns. Some support was gained for the hypothesis that subjects distribute attention among component dimensions so as to optimize categorization performance. Evidence was also obtained that subjects may have augmented their category representations with inferred exemplars. Implications of the results for theories of multidimensional scaling and categorization are discussed. In their 1956 classic, A Study of Thinking, Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin marveled at the capacity of people to discriminate stimuli and to identify them as unique items. At the same time they stressed the importance of categorization, the process by which discriminably different things are classified into groups and are thereby rendered equivalent. In one sense the processes of identification and categorization seem diametrically opposed, the former dealing with the particular and the latter with the general. Yet similar principles may underlie subjects' identification and categorization of multidimensional stimuli, and performance in these tasks may be highly related. Indeed, the present research renews the issue explored previously by Shepard, Hovland, and Jenkins (1961) and Shepard and Chang (1963)namely, Do the principles of stimulus generalization underlying identification performance also underlie categorization performance? Furthermore, given knowledge of performance in an identification paradigm, can one predict performance in a categorization paradigm using the same set of stimuli?
2,503 citations
TL;DR: The present work addresses how expectations about natural kinds originate by examining how young children, with their usual reliance on perceptual appearances and only rudimentary scientific knowledge, might not induce new information within natural kind categories.
1,190 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigated the role of contemporary racial stereotypes and their role in social cognition and found that positive traits are more associated with whites than with blacks, and negative characteristics are more strongly associated with blacks than with whites.
599 citations
TL;DR: Semantic impairment was present in patients with normal ability to discriminate visually presented shapes, indicating that the semantic deficit in Alzheimer's disease occurs independently of abnormalities of visuospatial function.
371 citations
TL;DR: Categorization serves two functions, enables to simplify the present social environment and to predict future social behavior and there is a risk error when using a category based on phenotypic similarities to infer genotypic properties.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter presents implications for creations and reduction of intergroup bias It presents the observation that persons organize their social environment by categorizing themselves and others into groups Categorization serves two functions, enables to simplify the present social environment and to predict future social behavior Although reliance on categories is efficient, there is a risk error when using a category based on phenotypic similarities to infer genotypic properties (Thus, members of a group may share similar opinions on matters relevant to the group but that similarity may not reflect an underlying similarity of motives or dispositions) Categorizing others into ingroups and outgroups produces a set of consistent and quite logical effects, including assumptions of similarity within and dissimilarity between groups, assumed homogeneity of the outgroup, and overreliance on information that supports these assumptions Further, categorization leads to intergroup comparisons and ingroup favoritism over outgroups even when no obvious justifications are present for bias
365 citations
266 citations
TL;DR: This review identifies 38 methods for either setting standards or adjusting them based on an analysis of classification error rates, and a trilevel classification scheme is used to categorize the methods.
Abstract: This review identifies 38 methods for either setting standards or adjusting them based on an analysis of classification error rates. A trilevel classification scheme is used to categorize the methods, and 10 criteria of technical adequacy and practicability are proposed to evaluate them. The salient characteristics of 23 continuum standard-setting methods are described and evaluated in the form of a “consumer’s guide.” Specific recommendations are offered for classroom teachers, educational certification test specialists, licensing and certification boards, and test publishers and independent test contractors.
254 citations
1 Jan 1986
155 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the detailed course of learning for categorization tasks defined by independent or contingent probability distributions over the features of category exemplars was studied for the task of symptom pattern recognition.
Abstract: The detailed course of learning is studied for categorization tasks defined by independent or contingent probability distributions over the features of category exemplars. College-age subjects viewed sequences of bar charts that simulated symptom patterns and responded to each chart with a recognition and a categorization judgment. Fuzzy, probabilistically defined categories were learned relatively rapidly when individual features were correlated with category assignment, more slowly when only patterns carried category information. Limits of performance were suboptimal, evidently because of capacity limitations on judgmental processes as well as limitations on memory. Categorization proved systematically related to feature and exemplar probabilities, under different circumstances, and to similarity among exemplars of categories. Unique retrieval cues for exemplar patterns facilitated recognition but entered into categorization only at retention intervals within the range of short-term memory. The findings are interpreted within the framework of a general array model that yields both exemplar-similarity and feature-frequency models as special cases and provides quantitative accounts of the course of learning in each of the categorization tasks studied.
141 citations
TL;DR: This work uses recent results on the spin glass mean field theories to show that this completion of Hopfield's memory model can be done in a natural way with a minimal modification of Hebb’s rule for learning.
Abstract: In the original formulation of Hopfield's memory model, the learning rule setting the interaction strengths is best suited for orthogonal words. From the point of view of categorization, this feature is not convenient unless we reinterpret these words as primordial categories. But then one has to complete the model so as to be able to store a full hierarchical tree of categories embodying subcategories and so on. We use recent results on the spin glass mean field theories to show that this completion can be done in a natural way with a minimal modification of Hebb's rule for learning. Categorization emerges naturally from an encoding stage structured in layers.
114 citations
TL;DR: This article investigated the relationship between developmental shifts in the organization of materials and developmental changes in deliberate strategy use and found that second and fourth grade children were presented with clusterable sort/recall lists representing the factorial combinations of high and low interitem association.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the use of visual similarity as a cue to category membership may produce the picture advantage and show that pictures from the same category are more similar than pictures from different categories.
Abstract: Categorization is usually assumed to require access to a concept's meaning. When pictures are categorized faster than words, they are assumed to be understood faster than words. However, pictures from the same category are more similar than pictures from different categories. The present article argues that the use of visual similarity as a cue to category membership may produce the picture advantage. The visual similarity hypothesis was tested in two experiments. In the first experiment, pictures showed a disadvantage for the visually similar categories of fruits and vegetables, but showed their usual advantage for the visually dissimilar categories of fruits and animals. In the second experiment, with a mixed list design, pictures were slower only for visually similar different decisions, but showed the usual advantage for all other decisions. The reliability of visual similarity as a cue to the decision accounted well for these results. Because visual similarity can be shown to have large effects on picture categorization, the use of categorization to compare speed of understanding of pictures and words is questionable.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This paper reviewed the research literature on the abilities of infants to categorize information from the domains of vision and speech and found that infants are able to classify their experiences and their categorical repre sentations follow the same fundamental principles that govern the categorical representations of adults.
Abstract: The research literature on the abilities of infants to categorize information from the domains of vision and speech is reviewed. The evidence suggests that in fants are able to categorize their experiences, and that their categorical repre sentations follow the same fundamental principles that govern the categorical representations of adults. Consideration is given to some of the difficulties that are encountered when the attempt is made to extrapolate from the categories and underlying concepts that are available to infants to those that exist in adults.
TL;DR: In naming and categorization tasks, subjects were able to name aloud written names faster than photographs of faces, but were usually able to classify faces on familiarity or occupation faster than written names.
Abstract: In naming and categorization tasks, subjects were able to name aloud written names faster than photographs of faces, but were usually able to classify faces on familiarity (Experiment 1) or occupation (Experiments 2, 3 and 4) faster than written names. Faces were categorized faster than they were named, but written names were named faster than they could be categorized. Experiment 5 showed that familiar names were named more quickly than “rearranged” names made by exchanging the first and second names of familiar people. This pattern of findings is consistent with the view that faces can only access name (phonological) codes via an intervening semantic representation, whereas written names can access semantic and name codes in parallel. In this respect, faces show properties similar to those of other visual objects, despite a priori reasons why this might not have been expected to be the case.
TL;DR: The argument is made that strategies typically used by experimental participants and exemplar processing have some fundamental properties in common that implies that a good fit to classification data by an exemplar model does not necessarily mean that performance is based on comparisons with remembered exemplars but suggests that abstract representations may not be different kinds of entities from the memory representation of a specific experience.
Abstract: This article is based on the Estes (1986b) article that examined learning processes associated with categorization in relation to new-old recognition. The focus of the commentary is on alternative views of recognition/classification relations as well as the implications of the more detailed analyses of learning for exemplar-based classification models. The argument is made that strategies typically used by experimental participants and exemplar processing have some fundamental properties in common. This implies that a good fit to classification data by an exemplar model does not necessarily mean that performance is based on comparisons with remembered exemplars but suggests that abstract representations may not be different kinds of entities from the memory representation of a specific experience.
TL;DR: The authors showed that observers' ratings of various phenomena related to group processes are significantly biased when raters get bogus feedback about a group's perfo-fraction of a group process.
Abstract: Previous research has consistently demonstrated that observers' ratings of various phenomena related to group processes are significantly biased when raters get bogus feedback about a group's perfo...
TL;DR: Assessment of the relative contribution to listener categorization strategies of various temporal partitions of the acoustic signal for trumpet, clarinet, and violin concluded that transients were sufficient, but not necessary, for instrument categorization in single-note contexts.
Abstract: An experiment was designed to assess the relative contribution to listener categorization strategies of various temporal partitions of the acoustic signal for trumpet, clarinet, and violin The role of context, whole phrase versus single note, was also evaluated Analog recordings of three folk-song phrases performed on two clarinets, violins, and trumpets were digitized A computer program was developed for digital signal editing Signal edit conditions included normal, time-variant steady-state alone, transients alone, and static steady state with and without transients Musicians and nonmusicians responded to a matching procedure in which unedited signals of one phrase were choice stimuli and edited signals for two different phrases served as models Two replications of all possible combinations of instrument, phrase, and edit conditions were presented for a total of 72 items Two additional groups of musicians and nonmusicians participated in an identical procedure in which the stimuli were single notes extracted from two phrases Analyses revealed that, for the whole-phrase signals, there was no case in which the means obtained with the "normal" signal and the "time variant steady state alone" signal were statistically different; these means were always statistically higher than the "transients alone" mean It was concluded that transients were neither sufficient nor necessary for the categorization of trumpet, clarinet, and violin in whole-phrase contexts The time- variant quasi-steady state was sufficient and necessary for the categorization of trumpet and violin phrases, and it was sufficient but not necessary for the categorization of clarinet phrases For the single- note stimuli, "transients alone" yielded means statistically equivalent to the "normal" and "time variant steady state alone" means It was concluded that transients were sufficient, but not necessary, for instrument categorization in single-note contexts The whole-phrase context yielded significantly higher means than the single-note context; music majors performed the task with greater accuracy than nonmusic majors
TL;DR: The authors found evidence for the existence of a linguistically relevant non-linguistic category prior to the onset of word comprehension in infants' early word comprehension, which suggests a structural similarity between infants' pre-learning categories and early semantic categories.
Abstract: The current reliance on linguistic data for inferences about the concept–word relationship has led to serious questions being raised regarding the existence and facilitative role of prelinguistic categories in early word learning. In three experiments a multiple habituation paradigm was used to examine the ability of 7- and 9-month-old prelinguistic infants to form a natural, basic-level object category. In Experiment 1, 9-month-old infants appeared to form a category of bird, but only when habituated to prototypical exemplars as opposed to poor exemplars. Discriminability between prototypical habituation exemplars and test stimuli was demonstrated in Experiment 2. In Experiment 3, 7-month-olds did not form a category of bird when habituated to prototypes. These findings constitute independent evidence for the existence of a linguistically relevant nonlinguistic category prior to the onset of word comprehension. Moreover, formation of prelinguistic categories appears to be facilitated by exposure to prototypes. Such goodness-of-exemplar effects suggest a structural similarity between infants' prelinguistic categories and early semantic categories. Finally, nonlinguistic categorization of natural basic-level objects, as represented in line drawings, appears to emerge between 0;7 and 0;9.
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that Pearson or rank order correlations may not be ubiquitously suitable for assessing such relations, primarily because independent variables (IV's) and dependent variables (DV's) may be related for only some of the children.
Abstract: A common problem concerns the relations between children's behaviour or characteristics at one age or in one situation, and those shown later or in another context. It is argued here that Pearson or rank order correlations may not be ubiquitously suitable for assessing such relations, primarily because independent variables (IV's) and dependent variables (DV's) may be related for only some of the children (e.g., those high on the IV may tend to be high on the DV, but for children with lower scores on the IV there may be no relation to the scores on the DV). Categorization procedures can help. It is shown that the use of Pearson correlations, multiple regression, continuous discriminant analysis and discrete discriminant analysis on the same data sets show up different types of relations between IV's and DV's. Categorization procedures can also facilitate examination of individual cases.
TL;DR: In this paper, an adaptation of the regression R 2 measure can be used for describing multiple association, where the categorization of the response variable is arbitiary but it is reasonable to assume an underlying continuous distribution.
Abstract: The concentration and entropy measures for categorical data tend to be highly dependent on the choice of response categories. If the categorization of the response variable is arbitiary but it is reasonable to assume an underlying continuous distribution, then an adaptation of the regression R 2 measure can be useful for describing multiple association.
1 Jan 1986
TL;DR: In this paper, two experiments investigating the hypothesis that self-esteem is elevated through intergroup discrimination (the positive distinctiveness hypothesis) are reported, and the experiments show that those who are given, and take, the opportunity to discriminate experience elevated self-estteem while those given no such opportunity de not.
Abstract: Two experiments investigating the hypothesis that self-esteem is elevated through intergroup discrimination (the positive distinctiveness hypothesis) are reported. Oakes and Turner (1980) have shown experimentally that silbjects who are given, and take, the opportunity to discriminate experience elevated self-estteem, while those given no such opportunity de not. This finding is open to an alternative explanation in terms of category salience alone. Experiment 1 disconfounds discrimination and salience and produces findings which
TL;DR: Categorization of auditory patterns on the basis of melodic contour was demonstrated in 10-month-old infants with an operant-fixation preference technique and the discussion both addresses the implications and raises methodological issues relevant to auditory categorization.
Abstract: Categorization of auditory patterns on the basis of melodic contour was demonstrated in 10-month-old infants with an operant-fixation preference technique. Study 1 established the usefulness of the preference paradigm for assessing discrimination of auditory patterns whose tones differed in frequency, wave form, or both. Study 2 used the same procedure to show that infants can treat as equivalent different auditory sequences that have the same melodic contour. Infants were familiarized with six rising-contour, or six falling-contour, patterns that differed in both the frequency and the wave form of the tones. During a preference test, two new sequences were presented, one with a rising contour and the other with a falling contour. Infants preferred the novel-contour test pattern. The discussion both addresses the implications of 10-month-olds spontaneously equating sequences on the basis of melodic contour and raises methodological issues relevant to auditory categorization.
TL;DR: The authors examined how the importance of a criterion for social categorization can vary with the social context and found that social categorisation on both a trivial and an important basis would lead to positive in-group bias.
Abstract: The study examined how the importance of a criterion for social categorization can vary with the social context. The main hypothesis was that there would be no difference between the influence of two criteria of differing real-world importance when each is used independently as the only criterion for social categorization in the same minimal group setting. The subsidiary hypothesis was that social categorization on both a trivial and an important basis would lead to positive in-group bias. The subjects were 66 schoolboys. Social categorization was on the basis of either a minimal criterion or subjects' school house-system. Both the main and the subsidiary hypotheses were confirmed.
TL;DR: This paper examined the relationship between categorization by gender and stereotyping of men and women after listening to a recorded discussion, college students tried to match up the male and female discussants with their statements.
Abstract: This experiment examined the relationship between categorization by gender and stereotyping of men and women After listening to a recorded discussion, college students tried to match up the male and female discussants with their statements They then evaluated on stereotype measures either these speakers or men and women they had not seen before Results showed that categorization, that is, the difference between intra -and intersex recognition errors, was correlated with sex-stereotyping of discussion participants on one of two stereotype measures Categorization was unrelated to stereotyping of individuals whose behavior was not observed These results suggest that categorization may produce different impressions of individuals from different categories by biasing the specific information associated with them, but that these impressions may not generalize to stereotypes about category members in general
TL;DR: In this paper, the benefits of four memory strategies (looking, naming, rehearsal, and categorization) were evaluated in a free-recall task using categorizable materials with preschool, kindergarten, and second-grade children.
Abstract: Developmental changes in awareness of the relative benefits of four memory strategies were examined. Preschool, kindergarten and second-grade children made paired-comparison judgements of the mnemonic benefits of looking, naming, rehearsal and categorization in a free-recall task using categorizable materials. Measures of spontaneous strategy use and strategy imitation were also obtained. Preschoolers judged looking as significantly more effective than the other three strategies. The kindergartners showed no significant preference, while second graders judged rehearsal and categorization as significantly more effective than looking or naming. Preschoolers and kindergartners named to-be-remembered items, while most second graders used a grouping strategy. Significant relationships between strategic awareness and strategic behaviour were found across ages; however, correlations were not significant when the effect of age was removed. Thus, coordination between strategic knowledge and strategic behaviour appears to result from increases in both strategic awareness and the ease with which more effective strategies can be executed.