Psychological notes: 7. Is the concept of human cognition of things innate or acquired?

There has been a big question in philosophy since ancient times: Who am I? Where did it come from? Where are you going? This question is so mysterious that it has been debated in philosophy for thousands of years, and it has not been concluded yet.

If we look at the world around us, why is this name the name of something that can be taught around us, and not other names? For example, why are shoes called shoes? Birds call birds? Why is the chair called a chair?

Behavioral scientists who study such problems mainly focus on cognition (human thinking) and perception (human interpretation of the world around them).

Humans classify things around them through concepts, so as to know and perceive the world around them.

A concept is a psychological representation that allows you to classify things around you, such as furniture, vegetables, animals, occupations, shoes, birds and so on. All classified things belong to the same category because they have the same characteristics. Birds of a feather flock together.

Concepts are particularly useful to human beings, because people can classify and process the information of things around them through concepts. For example, if you see a chair, classify it as a chair. Even if there is a big difference, you can classify them as chairs according to some characteristics.

So, what is the concept of chair? There are legs to support, planes to sit on, and backrests to lean on. Even if some reclining chairs and rocking chairs do not meet the above requirements, they can still be classified as chairs.

② The question of cognitive psychologists is: When and where did the conceptual classification of objects come into being?

Until the 1970s, traditional cognitive science believed that categories came from the language we used. In other words, the classification of things exists because our linguistic rationality can express words.

For example, we have an animal that can lay eggs, fly, have feathers and often chirp. Needless to say, this animal is called a bird. Traditional cognitive scientists believe that if there are no birds in our language, we will not have the concept of birds and there will be no classification of birds.

From this, it can be inferred that there are about 6,000 languages in use in the world, and the concepts and classifications should be very different in different languages due to the differences in inheritance and living environment.

Of course, there are also some words that are unique to human beings: such as mom, dad, grandma and so on. This seems to have a similar pronunciation in many languages.

For another example, Eskimos or Inuit people naturally have a rich perception of snow because they face the ice and snow. There are as many words about snow as 12 in Inuit, but there seems to be only one or two words about snow in English.

For many years, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and linguists all believe that the origin of conceptual classification of things comes from the theory of language and occupies a dominant position.

In 1970s, Eleanor Rosch, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, published a revolutionary research report based on her own psychological experiments, which challenged this traditional theoretical view.

Her research believes that the ability of the human brain to classify things does not necessarily come from language, but exists in people's existing physiological abilities. In a word, the cognitive ability of basic concept classification may be innate.

If people's cognitive ability to classify basic concepts is a blank sheet of paper at the beginning of birth, then their cognitive ability to classify all similar objects should be equal.

In the real world, Roche noticed people's cognitive ability to classify certain things, and the cognitive ability of some members in the same category was obviously superior to others.

Like about birds. When you think of birds, the picture of a swallow, an eagle or a sparrow may pop up in your mind; You don't necessarily think of penguins, geese or chickens that are hard to see at once.

Because in your mind, there is a standard typical bird model (prototype, ideal example), such as swallows flying, feathered wings, nesting, laying eggs and so on.

According to the argument, the boundary of our brain psychological classification is not clear. We need to compare penguins and chickens with typical birds in our minds to determine whether they are birds. She believes that the standard prototype of this basic thing is printed in our genes and is born with it. It is not acquired through language learning.

In 1960s, Roche discovered a perfect experimental specimen community-Dani population (Stoneage). Due to isolation, Danes still use the culture and language of the Stone Age. There are few modern concepts in this primitive language.

Roche's cognitive research on psychological concepts is about the classification of common colors. As we all know, there are 1 1 color categories in English: red, yellow, green, blue, black, gray, white, purple, orange, pink and brown.

People have a focus color for each color. For example, when they think of red, they think of fiery red, that is, red burnt red or typical red. When people recognize that the focus is fiery red, it is much faster than other similar red or non-red ones.

Danes in New Guinea have only two colors: beige, which describes black and cool; Maura, describe light and warmth. Therefore, Roche concluded that if the traditional cognitive theory of concept classification is correct, it is believed that the cognitive ability of concept classification comes from language; Then, Danny people should have only two concepts of color.

In order to test whether it is correct, Roche decided to teach Danes the concept of recognizing English color classification: teaching them eight kinds of focal colors and eight kinds of non-focal colors. If Roche's hypothesis holds, if the ability of color concept classification is innate, then Danes whose language level is still in the Stone Age can't learn to master color classification from their own language, because their language is only black and light. They should learn eight focused colors faster than unfocused colors, because it is assumed that the concept of focused color classification is engraved in genes.

Daniels selected by Roche Company to participate in the experiment are between 65438 02 and 65438 05 years old. Each group 12 men first confirmed that they were not color-blind, and they also confirmed that their conceptual classification of color was only black (mili) and light (light) before participating in the experiment.

① Use color cards commonly used in paint shops to represent the wavelength of special colors.

The first group used focus colors for learning test, pink, red, yellow, orange, brown, green, blue and purple.

The other group used color cards for learning tests between refocusing colors. For example, red-brown, yellow-green, these colors are called non-focus colors. (Non-focus color)

② the process of testing

After carefully trying to avoid some human factors that affect the test results, the experiment on Danny people began. Each group of Danes was told that they would take part in a task and a teacher would teach them a new language. On the first day, the researchers gave each group of colors to the experimental participants to consolidate their memories repeatedly. Then, after shuffling, do it again. Every time, if participants say the color correctly, they will be rewarded, and if they say it wrong, they will be told the correct color name.

After 5- 12 days, test your academic performance again. At the end of the learning stage, all the subjects were comprehensively tested to verify whether the subjects mastered the new color language recognition and classification ability and migration ability under the new environmental conditions, or only mastered it under the original learning conditions.

③ experimental results

The error rate of focus color learners during learning is 8.54; The error rate of non-focus color learners is18.96; This gap is still obvious.

In the process of experimental color learning, the focus color group basically mastered the eight conceptual classifications of focus color in five days; But it is not the key color group, and it took 12 days to master it basically.

In addition, in the process of experimental learning, four subjects in the unfocused color learning group were frustrated with learning difficulties and almost quit the experiment. It is difficult for experimental researchers to persuade them to stick to it.

This conceptual classification of things engraved in the genetic code is called natural category by Roche.

Once we are familiar with a concept, it becomes our own natural category and forms a standard cognitive concept model in our minds. When we encounter the same thing again, we will naturally classify it and compare it with the standard model we know.

This is why experienced medical experts can accurately determine what serious illness the patient on the X-ray film has in a few seconds, and the accuracy is very high.

1, Losch follow-up study

In Roche's follow-up research, she pointed out that if objects are expressed in strict language, there is no strict, clear, special and unchangeable boundary for the conceptual classification of natural things in the human brain. Although this concept of natural category is born, it develops with the change of environment.

For example, if birds are defined as flying, winged, chirping and living in trees, then magpies are completely the same, but swallows often live under the eaves instead of nesting in trees.

Are bats birds? Bats can fly, have wings and scream, but some people think bats are not birds, others think they are.

Therefore, Roche believes that the formation of our conceptual classification template for surrounding things is also a process of using basic templates and then developing and forming.

2. The latest psychological experiment application.

Roche's method is very harsh. First, it is difficult to find an isolated tribe like the Danes in the world, which can be used as a sample for research. Second, research is time-consuming and laborious, and it is difficult to carry out. There are three relatively simple experimental methods:

① In the experiment, analyze the matching degree between an object and your standard template by asking the subjects to score (1- 10).

For example, when it comes to the concept of dog, a typical German shepherd may be given 10 by most people. And if it's a French bulldog, maybe your score is only 3, because it doesn't fit your typical template about dogs.

The second method is relatively simple, that is, by listening to a paragraph with a button to explain right or wrong, and using the speed of pressing the button to indicate your familiarity with what you are listening to.

For example, when you hear that a turkey is a bird, your reaction speed and accuracy reflect the degree of matching you think after comparing what you hear with your mental model.

The more things conform to your standard template, the faster your reaction will be.

The third simple method is to ask participants to classify the things on the list, or draw a line to connect them.

For example, when it comes to furniture, you may quickly classify chairs, tables, cabinets and sofas, and small storage boxes, bookcases and briefcases may be behind.

If you ask what human emotions are, you may quickly associate common secular desires such as happiness, anger and anxiety, while confusion and anger may be slower.

Fast classification may be your key classification concept, and slow classification may be your non-key classification concept, which needs to be reconsidered and determined.

3. Roche's experimental results show that a scientist is challenging and asking questions.

Some scientists found through the empirical research in Papua on 20 10 that they passed the experimental methods and people similar to Losch, but reached the opposite conclusion. People master concept classification through language learning.

Who is right and who is wrong? Perhaps the truth is that when it is necessary to accurately describe the level of conceptual definition of things, it will inspire language to define and describe in language.