Three experiments were performed to test the influences of both the similarity relations in the stimulus set and of the prototypicality of stimulus items on response times to pairs of words. In the first experiment, subjects judged word pairs from six natural semantic categories as containing members from the same category or from different categories. Pairs of both high and low typicality were primed by items of their own or of a different typicality which were similar or dissimilar to the pairs. The effects of prime -pair relations on reaction times were analyzed. It was found, for both the prime types used in earlier work by Rosch and by Evans and Lockhead and for prime types new to this experiment, that a prime similar to a SAME pair produced faster responses to that pair than did a prime dissimilar to the pair, even when the prime -pair typicality match was controlled. In addition, responses to DIFFERENT pairs were shown to be significantly influenced by the similarity relations of the categories involved in the pairs. In the second experiment, three of the cultural categories from Experiment 1 were reexamined, with the special purposes of testing category differences in priming effects and of evaluating the influence of practice on priming results. The general pattern of response times obtained in Experiment 2 replicated the results of the first study: Prime-pair similarity was shown to influence reaction times importantly. With respect to category differences, it was demonstrated that response speeds were inversely related to the similarity between categories in the experimental set: When the category(s) from which the pair items came were distinctive in the total set, the average SAME and DIFFERENT responses to that pair were fast. No other important category differences were obtained. Finally, it was shown that there was some decrease in differential priming effects in these natural semantic categories very early in practice. In Experiment 3, the similarity relations of the primes and pairs used as stimuli in the two earlier studies were evaluated. Also, the correlations of the rated prime and pair similarities and the pair response times obtained in Experiment 1 were computed. It was shown that similarity was significantly related to both SAME and DIFFERENT reaction times: For SAME pairs, the more similar a prime was to a pair, the faster were the SAME responses to that pair; for DIFFERENT pairs, the more dissimilar were the categories involved in the pair, the faster were the DIFFERENT responses to that pair. These three studies demonstrated that the similarity relations within and between natural categories importantly affect category decisions in a priming paradigm. It is suggested that the role of the natural prototype in such categories can be interpreted in terms of the more general similarity structure of the category space. / This thesis was digitized as part of a project begun in 2014 to increase the number of Duke psychology theses available online. The digitization project was spearheaded by Ciara Healy.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Psychology, 2003. / Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 20 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 19-20).

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-116).

Unsupervised categorization is the task of classifying novel stimuli without external feedback or guidance, and is important for every day decisions such as deciding whether emails fall into 'interesting

Theories of categorization typically assume that categories are represented by some set of features that describe the properties of category members. However this view of category representation is incomplete. This dissertation lays out a framework for category representation, following Markman and Stilwell (2001), that creates a taxonomy of categories based on different components of relational structures. Relational categories are categories of entire relational systems while, role-governed categories, are represented as the roles in these systems. Lastly, thematic-relation categories group entities together that play complementary roles within a system. Four experiments are presented in support of this framework. They contrast thematic-relation categorization with role-governed categorization. Thematic-relation categorization entails categorizing objects together that play different roles within a domain, while role-governed categorization entails categorizing two entities that play the same role across domains. When the two are put in direct conflict, people prefer to form a thematic-relation category because within-domain connections are easier to find than across-domain connections. The purpose of the four experiments is to examine ways to boost the preference for role-governed categorization, thus revealing underlying processes. Here, role-governed categorization is facilitated in two ways. Experiment 1 re-frames the question of category formation as novel word extension. Natural role-governed categories have labels while thematic-relation categories do not. This pattern is reflected in the measured behavior as novel labels are extended across members of role-governed categories more readily than across members of thematic-relation categories. By claiming relational structures are critical to category representation, the framework described in this dissertation predicts that role-governed categorization and analogical reasoning share underlying mechanisms. Experiments 2-4 examine how making an analogy between the members of role-governed categories facilitates forming such categories. When making an analogy, people align the relational representations of a pair of domains, putting entities into correspondence by role, ignoring featural dissimilarities. When analogical comparison is induced, the rate of role-governed categorization is shown to double as compared to a baseline with no such analogical processes. The thesis concludes by outlining several future lines of research generated by unifying the fields of analogy and concept learning. / text

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Previous studies of emotion issues most focus on customer interaction and individual emotion, few studies focus on the interaction between supervisors and subordinates. Some findings also showed the Chinese supervisors would categorize their subordinates into ¡§insiders¡¨ and ¡§outsiders¡¨. Therefore, this search aimed at the emotion behavior and reaction between supervisors, insiders and outsiders. The findings of this search showed the Chinese supervisors tend to have more positive emotion behavior to ¡§insiders¡¨. Even they have negative behaviors to ¡§insiders¡¨, they will show more consideration. In the other way, ¡§insiders¡¨ always not worry about supervisors¡¦ negative behaviors even they will clarify some facts to supervisors, but ¡§outsiders¡¨ always use the evade way to confront supervisors¡¦ negative behaviors.

Category learning is an essential cognitive function. Empirical evidence and theoretical reasons suggest existence of multiple dissociable category learning systems. Here, a proposal is made that different category learning tasks are dominated by different category learning systems. A dual system theory of category learning COVIS proposes dissociation between an explicit, hypothesis-testing system, and an implicit, procedural learning system. Two studies testing this dissociation are presented, supporting the notion that hypothesis testing, utilizing working memory and explicit reasoning, mediates learning in rule-based tasks, while gradual and automatic S-R learning mediates information-integration tasks. Inconsistent findings in the literature regarding a prototype learning task suggest that two versions of this task, the A/nonA, single prototype task and the A/B, two prototype task, are mediated by distinct category learning mechanisms. A novel methodology for studying the A/nonA task and the A/B task is proposed and utilized in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. The study reveals that the A/B task is mediated by declarative memory while the A/nonA task is mediated by perceptual learning. We conclude that at least four category learning systems exist, based on four memory systems of the brain: working memory, procedural memory, declarative memory and perceptual memory. The four category learning systems compete or cooperate during learning, each system dominating in a different category learning task. Category learning tasks provide a useful tool to understand learning and memory systems of the brain. / text

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy