Comments on: Basic level categories

By: Fan of Don Lapre

Fan of Don Lapre — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 23:09:31 +0000

Wow…thats a deeper way to look at it…lol…very interesting

Fan of Don Lapre
bob@earthwormproductions.com
http://www.earthwormproductions.com

By: Emile

Emile — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Quite interesting, another thing I’d find interesting in the study is the variations of basic level categories in different cultures. I’d expect the basic level to be more granulated for things that are an important part of our culture, and very general for something we are dimly aware of.

I’d expect there to be variations between societies as well as between individuals, but I wonder about there amplitude. But then, maybe I’m wrong and there’s hardly any variation. It would seem pretty logical that a fisherman in an island village would have more granulated basic categories than “fish” …

By: Emile

Emile — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

By: Emile

Emile — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

(so either I posted the same comment twice and it isn’t being displayed (due to my proxy cache maybe ?), or it got lost somewhere …)

By: Camilo

Camilo — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Your blog is certainly a great help when dealing with categories and the like.
It was one of my reads when setting up faceted categories in one of thre blogs I manage.

By: Marcel van Mackelenbergh

Marcel van Mackelenbergh — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

There are three notions that ly at the foundation of my answer:
1. The mind (conscience) of people reflects a FUNCTIONAL representation of the world. This means, we see the world by looking at “what can we do with it?” Interested? Read Hegel
2. The strength (or basic-levelness) of a concept (an abstraction) lies in the amount of time a person has spent on the concept and the amount of interest that a person has in the concept. The more time and the more interest the more “vivid” (basic-level) the concept becomes
3. Cluster analysis: there is some level of abstraction (which is leaving out unimportant characteristics) which occurs most

So what I am trying to say is that the basic-levelness of an abstraction (classification) depends fully on the person. It is that person who gives meaning to that class. And that person will give meaning based on the frequency and intensity (s)he deals with that class. It all depends on what a person finds important that makes a class a basic level class or not.

Peter, others, does this contribute?

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not sure the cognitive scientists would agree with your nr.2 Not sure they wouldn’t either - just not sure they would.

By: conceptua001

conceptua001 — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not sure that concept strength or vividness equates with basic-levelness. There are many other dimensions of concepts aside from basicness which may relate to such notions. What is true, however, is that expertise (time/interest?) in a particular domain will influence the level within a hierarchy of categories which displays the basic level advantage (see for eg Rosch et al., ‘76; Tanaka & Taylor, ‘91); specifically, the shift will be in the direction of the subordinate category.

By: conceptua001

conceptua001 — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000