Concept learning, also called category learning, concept attainment or concept formation, was defined by Jerome Bruner, Jacqueline Goodnow and George Austin in their 1956 book A Study of Thinking as the search for and testing of the attributes that distinguish examples of a category from non-examples. Concepts function as mental categories that let a person classify objects, events or ideas by their shared relevant features, and concept learning involves comparing and contrasting groups that share concept-relevant features against groups that lack them. Bruner's definition emphasizes a systematic process of searching for and testing distinguishing features, setting concept learning apart from simple memorization or plain discrimination between individual items.
Facts
Core ClaimConcept learning is the search for and testing of attributes that distinguish members of a category from non-members, so a learner can correctly classify new instances under the concept. 2 Classification
Education Level FAQs
How do psychologists think people form concepts from examples?
Prototype and exemplar accounts are the best known explanations; some researchers see them as two ends of a range.
Psychologists have proposed several accounts, and none is accepted as the single answer. The prototype view holds that people abstract the central tendency of the examples they meet and categorize new items by their resemblance to that central example. Exemplar theory instead holds that people store specific instances and judge a new object by how closely it resembles known members and nonmembers of the category. More recently, cognitive psychologists have suggested that these two models form two extremes, and that people may hold several prototypes for a category, one for each cluster of examples. Rule-based, explanation-based and Bayesian accounts are also described.
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Source Wikipedia: Concept Learning
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Source Wikipedia: Concept Learning
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1. Concept learning (Wikipedia)
the search for and testing of attributes that can be used to distinguish exemplars from non exemplars of various categoriesView the Source 2. Wikipedia: Concept Learning
Wikimedia FoundationWikipedia Concept learning, lead paragraph, sentence 1
Concept learning, also known as category learning, concept attainment, and concept formation, is defined by Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin (1956) as "the search for and testing of attributes that can be used to distinguish exemplars from non exemplars of various categories".
In Approach: Cognitivism, Lead paragraph, in-approach
More simply put, concepts are the mental categories that help us classify objects, events, or ideas, building on the understanding that each object, event, or idea has a set of common relevant features.
Developed By: Jerome Bruner, Lead
Concept learning, also known as category learning, concept attainment, and concept formation, is defined by Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin (1956) as "the search for and testing of attributes that can be used to distinguish exemplars from non exemplars of various categories".
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