Activity . If you will try the above activity with a group of small children, you will observe that there are a number of ways in which the child would respond. S/he would pile them up into different groups based on: . size: all small triangles, squares, and circles together, all medium sized together, and so on.
. shape: all triangles together, all circles together, and so on . colour: all reds together, all yellows together, and so on . both size and shape: all small triangles together, all medium triangles together, and so on.
. size, shape and colour: all small circles of red colour together, all medium circles of yellow colour together, and so on. You have already learned about concept learning in Chapter , and the use of concepts in Human Memory in Chapter . Concepts usually fall into hierarchies or levels of understanding.
The levels are classified as superordinate (the highest level), basic (an intermediate level), and subordinate (the lowest level). While speaking we mostly use basic level concepts. When a person says, “I saw a dog” a basic level is used. Such a statement is much more likely to be made than Fig.
.2b : A Blank Map Up Side Down category of “chair” otherwise under the category of “table”. Consider another example: the concept ‘cup’. Cups : (i) are concrete objects, (ii) are concave, (iii) can hold solids and liquids, (iv) have handles. What about cups we see in the market: with no handle, with a square shape or unusually big in size?
In an experiment, the participants were shown the pictures of cups as in Fig. . and W. Labov asked them: which of these would you describe as the prototype for the concept “cup”?
Participants mostly chose number . Interestingly, some participants call number a bowl and number a vase because they were so different. “I saw a four legged animal that barks and wags its tail” or “an animal”. The first (subordinate) is far too specific than is needed for conversation, while the second (superordinate) is far too vague to