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Categorization, Concept Learning, and Behavior Analysis: an Introduction

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Categorization, Concept Learning, and Behavior Analysis: an Introduction JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR 2002, 78, 237±248 NUMBER 3(NOVEMBER) CATEGORIZATION, CONCEPT LEARNING, AND BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS: AN INTRODUCTION THOMAS R. ZENTALL,MARK GALIZIO, AND THOMAS S. CRITCHFIELD UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT WILMINGTON, AND ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY Categorization and concept learning encompass some of the most important aspects of behavior, but historically they have not been central topics in the experimental analysis of behavior. To intro- duce this special issue of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB), we de®ne key terms; distinguish between the study of concepts and the study of concept learning; describe three types of concept learning characterized by the stimulus classes they yield; and brie¯y identify several other themes (e.g., quantitative modeling and ties to language) that appear in the literature. As the special issue demonstrates, a surprising amount and diversity of work is being conducted that either represents a behavior-analytic perspective or can inform or constructively challenge this perspective. Key words: categorization, concept learning, stimulus class, function transfer Categorization is not a matter to be taken taken place. Cognitive psychologists Laur- lightly. There is nothing more basic than cat- ence and Margolis (1999), in a book reviewed egorization to our thought, perception, ac- in the present issue, minced no words about tion, and speech. (Lakoff, 1987, p. 5) the association: ``Concepts are the most fun- Concepts give our world stability. They capture damental constructs in theories of the mind'' the notion that many objects or events are (p. 3). Yet scholars from many research com- alike in some important respects, and hence munities have struggled to come to grips with can be thought about and responded to in the complex repertoires that the topic en- ways already mastered. Concepts also allow us compasses. to go beyond the information given; for once The heterogeneity of this research area is we have assigned an entity to a class . we evident in the absence of a consensus de®- can infer some of its . attributes. (Smith & nition of the term concept (see Palmer, this Medin, p. 1) issue; Wasserman & Bhatt, 1992). Writers There is, perhaps, no larger or more di- tend to stress the importance of concepts verse literature within experimental psychol- rather than specifying their de®ning fea- ogy than that focused on categorization and turesÐperhaps, as Palmer speculates in his concept learning. This topic is, to the casual review of Margolis and Laurence (1999), ``re- observer, most directly associated with human garding the term as too familiar to need def- cognitive psychology, within which the largest inition'' (p. 598). Nevertheless, an introduc- volume of research and theory building has tion to this special issue demands at least an attempt to de®ne its subject matter. Order of authorship for this article was determined by Typically in cognitive psychology, categori- random drawing. We are grateful to the numerous re- zation is regarded as a process of determining viewers, who met the dual challenge of evaluating man- what things ``belong together,'' and a category uscripts according to JEAB's usual expectations while em- is a group or class of stimuli or events that so bracing the conceptual and methodological diversity inherent in the topic, and to the authors of the articles cohere. A concept is thought to be knowledge contained herein, many of whom invested extra effort in that facilitates the categorization process tailoring their work to an unfamiliar audience. (e.g., Barsalou, 1991, 1992). Consistent with Address correspondence to Tom Zentall at the De- the representational style of much cognitive partment of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexing- ton, Kentucky 40506 (e-mail: [email protected]); theorizing, conceptual knowledge is often Mark Galizio at the Department of Psychology, University portrayed as existing independently of any of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, North particular behavior±environment relation. Carolina 28403 (e-mail: [email protected]); or Tom This is assumed partly because, once a cate- Critch®eld at the Department of Psychology, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois 61704 (e-mail: tscritc@ilstu. gorization repertoire is in place, an individual edu). may be able to categorize both previously en- 237 238 THOMAS R. ZENTALL et al. countered stimuli and novel events, suggest- departure by suggesting that ``when a group ing to some observers that the latter are rec- of objects gets the same response, when they ognized via comparison to general form a class the members of which are react- information represented in memory. Thus, ed to similarly, we speak of a concept'' (p. the goal of many studies in cognitive psy- 154). Thus, categorization may be said to in- chology is to map the knowledge that humans corporate a pattern of systematic differential presumably apply in already established pat- responding to classes of nonidentical, though terns of categorization. For example, struc- potentially discriminable, stimuli (see Fields, tured interviewing and other techniques may Reeve, et al., this issue; Wasserman & Bhatt, be used to determine what entities people in- 1992). A category is a class of stimuli that oc- clude in a category like birds; which of these casion common responses in a given context. entities are considered to be more or less typ- Such classes include stimuli involved in an ex- ical of the category; and whether hierarchical plicit learning history plus, potentially, novel relations apply to the category or instances stimuli to which the fruits of this history may within it (e.g., Rosch, 1978). transfer. Many writers use the terms category Behavior analysts are likely to regard as for- and stimulus class more or less interchange- eign this practice of describing terminal per- ably; we will follow that practice here. formance without examining the necessary When the stimuli within and between cat- and suf®cient conditions for its emergence. egories vary along relatively simple dimen- Reservations about the approach are war- sions (e.g., wavelength, size, brightness), cat- ranted. Although cognitive psychologists ex- egorization is readily conceived in the same pend much energy debating the structure terms as stimulus discrimination and gener- and contents of the knowledge that is as- alization. For example, ``Generalization with- sumed to underpin categorization and the in classes and discrimination between classesÐ means by which it is compared to new per- this is the essence of concepts'' (Keller & ceptual experiences (Laurence & Margolis, Schoenfeld, 1950, p. 155). The analytical 1999; see Palmer, this issue, for a brief syn- challenge becomes more daunting, of course, opsis of some relevant theories), their ac- as category membership is determined more counts can be dif®cult to distinguish empiri- complexly (e.g., Herrnstein, 1990). Consider, cally. Barsalou (1992) has noted a tendency as an instructive case, the balan category of for competing cognitive theories to make sim- ilar predictions and to account equally well the Australian aboriginal language Dyirbal, for data obtained from human subjects. Per- which ``includes women, ®re, and dangerous haps more important for present purposes, things. It also includes birds that are not dan- this focus on knowledge may discourage at- gerous, as well as exceptional animals such as tention to the role of experience in creating the platypus, bandicoot, and echidna'' (Lak- and maintaining conceptual behavior (Astley off, 1987, p. 5). Any plausible account must & Wasserman, 1996). also explain how categories add and lose members, merge and fracture, share mem- bers that may belong to different categories AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH under different circumstances, support the TO CONCEPT LEARNING spontaneous transfer of function from one From a behavior-analytic perspective, the member to another, and so forth. present topic provides an opportunity to ap- Some writers have gone so far as to label ply the operational analysis of psychological the capacity to glean abstract relations, such terms that Skinner (e.g., 1945) frequently es- as those that apparently unite many catego- poused. Rather than speculating about the ries, as the essence of what it means to be status of hypothetical knowledge structures, it human (e.g., see Deacon, 1997). Regardless is possible to examine the circumstances un- of whether conceptual repertoires are der which we speak of conceptualizationÐ uniquely human (many articles in the present that is, what individuals are doing when they issue suggest that they are not), they are are said to behave conceptually, and how they clearly among the most interesting behavioral came to behave in that way. Keller and phenomena available for study. Because of Schoenfeld (1950) speci®ed this very point of their richness, generativity, and adaptability, CATEGORIZATION AND CONCEPT LEARNING 239 they invite a thorough experimental and the- examples and nonexamples of category oretical analysis. members (Barsalou, 1991). The goal is ``to Unfortunately, categories and concepts establish high degrees of control over cate- have been addressed only sporadically within gory knowledge'' (Barsalou, 1992, p. 31), behavior analysis. This neglect may be under- with knowledge operationalized more or less stood partly as a rejection of the cognitive as above. Such paradigms, which are com- theoretical
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