of the words unintentionally or incidentally. In this kind of learning, participants notice features such as whether two or more words rhyme, start with identical letters, have same vowels, etc. Thus, verbal learning is both intentional as well as incidental. C ONCEPT L EARNING The world, in which we live, consists of innumerable objects, events and living beings.
These objects and events are different in their structures and functions. One of the many things human beings have to do is to organise the objects, events, animals, etc., into categories so that within the category, objects are treated as equivalent even though they are different in their features. Such categorisations involve concept learning. What is a Concept?
A concept is a category that is used to refer to a number of objects and events . Animal, fruit, building, and crowd are examples of concepts or categories. It may be noted that the terms, concept and category, are interchangeably used. A concept is defined as ‘a set of features or attributes connected by some rule’.
Instances of a concept are those objects or events or behaviours, which have common features. A feature is any characteristic or aspect of an object or event or living organism that is observed in them, and can be considered equivalent to some features observed or discriminated in other objects . Features are of innumerable kinds and their discriminability depends upon the degree of the observer’s perceptual sensitivity. Properties like colour, size, number, shape, smoothness, roughness, softness, and hardness are called features.
Rules that are used to connect the features to form a concept may be very simple or complex. A rule is an instruction to do something . Keeping in view the rules that are used in defining concepts, psychologists have studied two types of concepts : artificial concepts and natural concepts or categories. Artificial concepts are those that are well- defined and rules connecting the features are precise and rigid.
In a well-defined concept the features that represent the concept are both singly necessary and jointly sufficient . Every object must have all the features