The Cognitive Scheme in Perceptual Categorization
Abstract
Perceptual categorization is a domain of the research on cognitive processes which combines perception with conceptual thinking. The paper discusses problems connected with the recognition of perceptual structures in the light of contemporary models of categorization. An analysis of a prototypical model, statistic and exemplary, has shown that various manners of operationalization of the concept of the recognition of structures, in respect of the assumed theory of the processes of categorization. The basic question here which a given theory is to answer is the following: does a man in the process of categorization creates or discovers a specimen most typical of a given class, as it is assumed in the prototypical model? Or, does it only memorize its particular specimen, which is in line with the assumptions of the exemplary model?
The characterization of the cognitive representation of perceptual category points that specimens belonging to a given class are much more similar to one another, than to the specimens of other categories. This seems understandable in the light of the physical structure of stimuli which constitute a category and sensorial limitations of man. However, in some empirical research it was shown that the perceived similarity between specimens is not constant, but it changes in respect of the manner of categorization. An analysis of the cognitive scheme has been presented here in the context of a statistic, prototypical, and exemplary model of categorization.
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