Work

Ecology, Fitness, Evolution

Year: 2016

Type: article

Abstract: Categorization’s great debate has weighed single-system exemplar theory against the possibility of alternative processing systems. We take an evolutionary and fitness perspective toward this debate to illuminate it in a new way. There are continuities in category processes—extending across millions of years in vertebrate evolution—that have profound theoretical implications. Thus, animals are crucial behavioral ambassadors to this area. They reveal the roots of human categorization, the basic assumptions of vertebrates entering category tasks, and the surprising weakness of exemplar memory as a category-learning strategy. These results have joined neuroscience results to prompt important changes in categorization theory. Categorization’s great debate is ending. Broad-based converging evidence now makes it clear that the unitary exemplar view is insufficient. Categorization is served by multiple systems of process and representation.

Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science

DOI: 10.1177/0963721416652393

Authors: J. David Smith, Alexandria C. Zakrzewski, Jennifer M. Johnson, Jeanette C. Valleau

Institutions: Georgia State University, University at Buffalo, State University of New York

Language: English

Topic: Categorization, perception, and language

Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Awards: Metacognition in Comparative Perspective, Biobehavioral Foundations and Development of Cognitive Competence