Prasada Sandeep, Dillingham Elaine M
Department of Psychology, Hunter College, CUNY, North Bldg, New York, NY 10021, USA.
Cognition. 2006 Feb;99(1):73-112. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2005.01.003. Epub 2005 Apr 19.
Nominal concepts represent things as tokens of types. We report six experiments that investigate the nature of the relations we represent between the type of thing something is (e.g. DOG) and its other properties. The experiments provide evidence that we represent principled connections between the type of thing something is (e.g. DOG) and some of its properties (k-properties; e.g. having four legs for dogs), but not other properties (t-properties; e.g. being brown for dogs). Principled connections are different from logical, statistical, and causal connections. Principled connections, (i) license the expectation that tokens of the type will generally possess the k-property, (ii) license explanation of the presence of k-properties in tokens of a type by reference to the type of thing it is, and (iii) license normative expectations concerning the presence of the k-property in tokens of the type. The experiments provide evidence for all three of these aspects of principled connections. The experiments also demonstrate that principled connections must be distinguished from merely strong statistical connections. We suggest that principled connections are one of the fundamental types of relations (in addition to logical, statistical, and causal relations) in terms of which our conceptual knowledge is structured. We argue that principled connections reveal a formal mode of understanding and explanation. This mode of understanding complements other modes of understanding that have been studied within the theory-based approach to conceptual representation. Finally, we suggest that kind representations are distinguished from representations of mere types by the representation of principled connections to k-properties.
名义概念将事物表征为类型的实例。我们报告了六项实验，这些实验探究了我们所表征的事物类型（例如狗）与其其他属性之间关系的本质。实验提供了证据，表明我们表征了事物类型（例如狗）与其某些属性（k属性；例如狗有四条腿）之间的原则性联系，但没有表征与其他属性（t属性；例如狗是棕色的）之间的联系。原则性联系不同于逻辑联系、统计联系和因果联系。原则性联系：（i）使人们预期该类型的实例通常会具有k属性；（ii）允许通过提及事物所属的类型来解释该类型实例中k属性的存在；（iii）允许对该类型实例中k属性的存在产生规范性预期。实验为原则性联系的这三个方面都提供了证据。实验还表明，必须将原则性联系与仅仅是强统计联系区分开来。我们认为，原则性联系是我们概念知识得以构建的基本关系类型之一（除了逻辑关系、统计关系和因果关系）。我们认为，原则性联系揭示了一种形式化的理解和解释模式。这种理解模式补充了在基于理论的概念表征方法中所研究的其他理解模式。最后，我们认为，类属表征与仅仅是类型的表征的区别在于对与k属性的原则性联系的表征。
