CONCEPT FORMATION

DEFINITION

Concept Formation (Knowledge)

Concept formation refers to a higher-order mental process that acts on information that has been perceived through
our sensory organs and encoded and stored in memory. This process includes organization of the information into
conceptual categories and the use of such knowledge in reasoning, problem solving, goal selection, and planning.
Through the process of categorization, infants and young children begin to form concepts about objects, people, and
actions. For instance, early in development, infants learn to categorize faces as familiar and unfamiliar. As discussed
in an earlier section, infants are seen to spend more time attending to faces that are familiar, such as the mother
(Bushnell et al., 1989). This indicates that infants have already begun to categorize faces according to their perceived
familiarity.

Concepts (e.g., faces and objects) are units of mental representation that assign certain perceptual features to
specionc conceptual categories. Early in development, we learn to differentiate between living and nonliving objects,
based on our ability to generate self-motion. This process becomes more complex as we learn to differentiate
subcategories within these categories of living and nonliving objects. Knowledge organized into such categories is
encoded and stored in long-term memory and retrieved during action.

Key elements of concept formation are the processes of grouping and differentiation. Grouping involves the
clustering of information into larger units, a process known as “chunking” (Gentile, 2000). Chunking helps the system
function more efficiently because the performer has to attend to groups of information rather than each piece of
information separately. The benefits of chunking perhaps can be seen best through an example: Consider a child
walking through his classroom to his teacher. In performing this task, he encounters numerous toys strewn across the
floor, furniture placed all over the room and a few peers running around in the classroom. The process of chunking
allows the grouping of all stimuli into stationary and moving objects; this way the child can perceive the movement of
his peers as a unit rather than attend to the movement of each child individually. Grouping reduces the attention
demands of the task and allows the child to allocate his attention to additional stimuli (furniture) that are important.

Differentiation, on the other hand, refers to the process through which performers perceive more detail in an array of
stimuli as they become more familiar with it. To use the example cited in the preceding paragraph, as the child begins
to learn to walk, he will likely not perceive the subtle differences in the speed of movement of the moving objects in
the environment. With experience, he will learn to distinguish between stimuli related to other children either
walking or running.

Development of concepts and knowledge is extremely useful for understanding the demands of the task and goal
completion. Early in the learning of a task, performers should learn the relationship between movement and the goal
of the movement. Failure to understand the goal of the task can lead to goal confusion, which is commonly seen in
elderly individuals with memory disorders (Gentile, 2000). Specioncation of the goal of the task has been shown to
be critical in improving the quality of movement (determined by kinematic analysis) in unimpaired adults (Lin, Wu, &
Trombly, 1998; Wu et al., 1998) and individuals recovering from a cerebrovascular accident (Wu et al., 1998).
Changing the goal of the task influences the movement pattern selected. In a classic study (Marteniuk et al., 1987)
demonstrated that unimpaired subjects reached for and grasped a disc differently depending on whether the goal of
the task was to place the disc accurately in a container or to throw the disc. Attention to the goal and knowledge of
the relationship between movement and its outcome (action) are key components of concept formation pertaining
to hand skills.

In summary, concept formation is a conscious and active process that categorizes sensory information by associating
it with conceptual categories. These categories are stored in long-term memory and retrieved in response to the
demands of the task. As stated earlier in the chapter, such information is thought to be processed through ventral
neural pathways projecting from the visual cortex to the temporal cortex (Goodale, 1992).

CONCEPT FORMATION
Meaning:

The process by which we discover the feature or features which are ‘common’ to a large number of objects and
associate these with a symbol which thereafter may be applied to other similar objects is called ‘Concept formation’.

Stages / Steps

The process of formation of concepts involves four elements:

Experience (exploration), abstraction, generalization and analysis.

Experience is the process of direct participation in an action.

Abstraction is the process of discovering the common elements in a large number of situations after experiencing
them. One observes that two or more objects are alike or similar in some respects and different in other respects.
For example, in acquiring the concept ‘dog’, a child may hear the word ‘dog’ over and over in different situations and
learns to apply the word to any object that has the same general characteristics as a dog. Thus, in the early stages of
the development of the concept, the child may apply the word to cats or four-legged animals, because up to that
time he has observed only one ‘common’ element in his experience, namely, four-leggedness. Additional
observations and finer discrimination will ‘define’ the concept to the point where the word will be applied ‘only’ to
dogs.

Generalization is the process of extending the concept to include objects which possess a quality in common with
other objects but which have not been experienced as any of the objects in the abstracting process. Quite obviously,
a concept is learned through trial and error reaction to objects, situations or events. This refinement and enrichment
of a concept depends upon the number and variety of trial and error reactions of experiences involved in the
development of the concept.

Analysis is the systematic procedure applying techniques for analysis of academic content which are similar in intent
to those employed by task analysis in designing sequences for a job.

Bruner’s Cognitive Development Theory

According to Jerome S. Bruner, “A theory of instruction, in short, is concerned with how, what one wishes to teach,
can best be learned, with improving rather than describing learning”.

Bruner in his book ‘The process of Education’ explained the theories of instruction. According to him it is prescriptive
since it prescribes rules for achieving knowledge or skills and guiding techniques for measuring or evaluating the
outcomes. It will be of normal type since it aims at goals to be achieved and deals with conditions to meet them.

Bruner has also suggested four important features of the theory of instruction. They are:

1. Predisposition to Learn: Predispose means, “liable before the event”. This theory is concerned with the
experiences and contexts which will tend to make the child willing and able to learn when he enters the
school.
2. Structure of Knowledge: It must prescribe the ways in which a body of knowledge is to be structured so that
it will be easily learnt by the learner.
3. Sequence: A theory of instruction would specify the most effective sequence in which the learning materials
are to be presented to the students effectively.
4. Reinforcement: A theory of instruction must specify the nature of rewards, moving from extrinsic rewards to
intrinsic rewards.

The developmental aspect of Bruner’s theory centres around his interest in cognitive development.

Concept Map

It is a great use having the concept map in explaining the general principles formed out of many related ideas.
Concept map is also used to explain the mutual relationships existing between the various general principles. The
relationship between various ideas put forth in a lesson and the way they lead to the general principles are
understood with the help of concept map.

As already told, concept map helps to understand how the different general principles are themselves related. It is
very useful in preparing a classified summary of the ideas learnt in a lesson. Here, in the concept map, starting from a
general principle, every idea has to be put in a hierarchical order. ‘Linkage’ and Cross Linkage’ between the different
general principles are to be indicated. In preparing the lesson for his class, the teacher is helped to a large extent by
this concept map.

The students can be given concept map as a follow-up activity. So that it forms stimulated home assignment. The
analytical thinking is students in promoted by it and their learning become comprehensive and meaningful. Thus,
concept map is a helpful tool in the learning process.

Psychologists use the term concept formation, or concept learning, to refer to the development of the ability to
respond to common features of categories of objects or events. Concepts are mental categories for objects, events,
or ideas that have a common set of features. Concepts allow us to classify objects and events. In learning a concept,
you must focus on the relevant features and ignore those that are irrelevant (Bourne & colleagues, 1986). For
instance, paperbacks and hardcover editions are all books. But you must also discriminate on the basis of relevant
features: a stack of papers is not a book. What is the crucial feature of a book? Usually, it is the presence of a binding.
Most concepts, however, cannot be identified on the basis of a single critical feature. Most of the words we use refer
to concepts and not to particular things. Proper nouns such as “William James” and “California” are exceptions. In
learning some of their first concepts, children commonly focus not on names but on the functions of objects. For
example, a spoon is something to eat with, and a pan is something to cook in. Other early concepts are based on
groupings of objects that are similar in some respect: liquid things, moving things, or soft things. Several theories
have been proposed to explain how we learn concepts. The stimulus-response association theory was proposed by
Clark Hull (1920). He argued that we learn to associate a particular response (the concept) with a variety of stimuli
that define the concept. For instance, we associate the concept “dog” with all of the characteristics of dogs (four legs,
fur, tail, and so on) and are able to generalize the concept to unfamiliar dogs. The hypothesis testing theory was
proposed by Jerome Bruner and his colleagues (1956). Bruner believed that we develop a strategy of testing our
hypotheses about a concept by making guesses about which attributes are essential for defining the concept. While
this tends to be the method used by subjects in an experiment, it might not be appropriate in everyday life (perhaps
because we often use natural concepts rather than formal concepts in everyday life). Eleanor Rosch (1978) suggested
that the natural concepts in everyday life are learned through examples rather than abstract rules. Her exemplar
theory proposes that we learn the concept of “dog” by seeing a wide variety of dogs and developing a prototype of
what the typical dog is like. Busemeyer and Myung (1988) studied prototype learning in college students by
presenting a series of exemplars and asking the subjects to reproduce the prototype. This type of study allows
researchers to gain an understanding of the concept learning process. Over the years, everyone is faced with an
infinite number of complex stimuli. How we choose to group and sort them into concepts will depend upon our
interests, beliefs, values, and experiences with the environment. Consider the concept “job.” To one person it may
mean an unpleasant task, while to another it is a means of achieving fulfillment. Concept formation is a form of
thinking that helps us to better understand the world we live in, as well as ourselves.

How are concepts formed?

Definition: A concept is defined as a meaningful unit of knowledge that represents a real-world object or a cohesive
entity with properties and is used to interpret new information and make sense of existing information. The source of
this information is sensory which is translated as a perception (readable by the mind) and connected to (and
influenced by) existing knowledge which is stored as a memory. The processing is done via cognition and
metacognition.

The classical view is that we learn a concept’s defining features and its examples. For example, a child learns that
living things move and non-living things don’t move, so things that move belong to the concept of “living.” Then the
concept is updated with more criteria. A child then learns that something that used to move and has stopped moving
would belong to a new concept called “dead.” So both concepts create a new concept. This view is limiting because a
few defining criteria don’t account for natural variations and diversity. Pure definitions can’t exist for something like
“greek food,” but can exist for “pizza”. Yet, both are equally valid concepts.

The probabilistic view is that we learn concepts by recognizing the most common features among many examples.
Co-occurring features are averaged out and stitched together to form a category. A dog has co-occurring features
such as 4 legs, barks, wags tail, and comes close to humans. We group these features in a process called “feature
clustering” or “chunking” to simplify them as one single thing instead of many things. These features are averaged
across many experiences with dogs that develop a rigid concept of a dog. These are then updated with new criteria
with new rules such as a digital dog, which doesn’t come close to humans but looks exactly like one on a screen. The
probabilistic view is more feature- and property-driven without making them hard criteria or definitions. As long as
they co-occur with reasonable flexibility, they become a unified concept. These concepts also develop by learning
many new examples and finding what’s common in them all. Looking at a number of cats, one can create loose
properties for size, but fairly stable properties for facial features and movement, all of which co-occur among most
examples. However, this view fails to account for diversity where a single property is more important than all other
properties. Dinosaurs, for example, are defined as creatures from a specific era, but the mental image has nothing to
do with that era – it could be a pterodactyl (flying dino), t-rex (land dino), or a spinosaurus (water dino, unless it has
an identity crisis, yet again). All of them are different forms with very few common features.

The prototype view looks at how each concept has a prototype – a typical example that represents a category. Here,
the prototype would have approximate features and new examples are compared with the prototype before judging
them as belonging or not belonging to that category. For example, a german shepherd can be a prototype and all
dog-like creatures are judged on how similar they are to the prototype. If they are very similar, the example is
assigned to the concept of a dog. If they are remotely similar, they are not. This approach may function on some level
but doesn’t explain how wolves are not dogs.

The abilities view takes a different but meaningful approach to concept formation that the prototype view fails at.
Concepts are essentially defined by how they can stay separated from each other. The concept of a cat and dog can
be well separated, so there are 2 emerging concepts. But the concepts of trust and reliability are not easily
differentiated, so they might as well be one. Here, the core of concept formation is the ability to differentiate one
cluster of information from another.

The exemplar view is a combination of the ability view, prototype view, probabilistic view, and classical view where
examples are the foundation of concept formation. Ideal examples, sometimes called “referents” or “exemplars”
become the central focus of a concept, and not the concept itself. New examples modify the concept and more
examples differentiate a concept from other ones. The variety of properties that exist among all examples of a
category create the concept as an “abstraction” of the “exemplar”. Imagine a dinosaur, perhaps you thought of a T-
rex. But there are more dinosaurs. Here, all dinosaurs need not have all properties, but a few properties like size, era,
teeth, and walking style are enough to recognize the abstract idea of a dinosaur which is only reasonably understood
based on the examples. However, even a tiny creature, which more resembles an insect today, can be identified as a
dinosaur based on the number of examples one has that feed the concept of a dinosaur. This view also allows a
typical example to represent a concept instead of the concept being a typical thing that represents all of its examples.
So, for example, T-rex represents dinosaurs. But dinosaurs don’t represent T-rex when we think about “dinosaurs”.
However, this view is also not enough because it fails to explain how we understand love or more abstract ideas such
as squareness.

These ideas have an interplay with language and sensory features with updates coming from previous knowledge. So
I’ll introduce a new view called the dynamic-meaning view. It addresses a concept and its interplay with abstract
thought, sensations, interaction with the world, and language use[1]. A concept is formed in an existing knowledge
network of properties and representations that are connected with many mental representations of concepts,
mental representations of examples, real-world structure and function of a concept put in words, and contexts. We
first understand concepts[2] by clubbing features/properties of examples and categories (size, weight, function). We
then place them in a classifying system for categories (animals, vehicles, food). We then differentiate and form
unique concepts by looking at rules, similarities, and differences[3] between multiple categories (animals vs. trees)
and objects/examples (car vs. plane) simultaneously.

This process lets us extract the most minimalistic features of concepts as abstract ideas and store them in memory.
These are base-level sensory attributes called “perceptual properties” that have very little independent meaning.
Properties like length, movement in a specific pattern, textures, visual angles, location, association with something,
emotions related to a situation, new sounds, etc., and contextual variables like what co-occurs, the purpose of
analysis, the typical environment where a concept is noticed or expected, etc., are included in perceptual properties.
Most of these perceptual properties are extracted from a concept since it’s not yet evident if a baby is born with
inherent concepts. However, babies and animals can identify minimalistic perceptual properties. These perceptual
properties are inherently attached to their original examples (roughness of skin, shape of a human), but their
representation can be detached to and identified in new concepts. This is where language and experience create a
way to identify those perceptual properties and interpret new concepts (latex feels different from skin, a shadow
looks like a human). Then the brain creates 2 additional properties which are independent of the concept: A clear
mental model of the perceptual properties (shape, taste, feelings something evoked) and a language-based label
(words as descriptors).

Categorizing 2 different things with labels gives them unique meaning, just because of the categorization [4] with
labels. These additional properties then become an abstract way to separate 2 concepts. That means, we tend to give
this classification additional meaning because of the label. The label represents more than the thing that is labeled
because of clearly stored perceptual features and words. Eventually, new concepts are represented as metaphors and
analogies for those perceptual properties, and labels that become their own models. As the total list of perceptual
properties and models increases, they become the collective pool of knowledge. This is aligned with gestalt
psychology and embodied cognition views of concept formation.

The more details there are in a person’s conceptual understanding, the more they become an expert. Concepts are
updated with new information as one learns more nuances. And more nuances allow a person to re-organize
concepts.

Concept formation is inherently a noisy classification task. Each perceptual input – sensory and descriptive – allows a
person to classify a concept and differentiate it. Noise indicates irrelevant or confusing information that makes
classification and recognition difficult. Attempts to find patterns for concepts is essentially a noise-reduction
mechanism. Grouping stars and separating out the planets from the night sky is a noise-reduction method to
conceptualize the night sky.

Concepts

Concepts, the mental categories used to organize events and objects, are often arranged in hierarchical order from
general to more specific—for example, organism, animal, vertebrate, quadruped, dog, collie. Such categories help
people to understand new information and to plan—for example, by dividing available time into periods for study,
class attendance, recreation, and so forth. People tend to use a prototype, a model of a concept, to typify members
of a particular category. The prototype any particular individual uses depends on that individual's experience. Your
prototype of “dog,” for example, might be a longhaired, medium‐size, long‐muzzled, black and white, tail‐wagging
animal, and you would tend to classify dogs that you encounter as in various ways being the same as or different
from your prototypical dog.

Theories of concept formation

The term mediation theory refers to the process used in forming connections between things previously not
connected.

The hypothesis‐testing theory considers concept formation to be an active process in which people acquire
information by generating hypotheses about stimuli, testing the hypotheses, and accepting them or discarding them
and formulating others.