Thinking: Exploring Mental Life 123To a child, forming the concept of a dog, a dog “is” an animal with some or
all of these attributes: it barks andbites andhas fur anda tail andfour legs.(a) A concept is a mental.(b) Concepts help us to organize and simplify.
(c) A conjunctive concept attributes to make a perceptual.
Answers: (a) category; (b) information; (c) joins; whole.Note that when a child is acquiring the concept of a dog, there may be a
period of confusion. Let’s say that three-year-old Tammy is visiting an aquarium
with her parents. An entertaining show is put on with seals. Tammy calls them
“doggies” because they bark. The parents explain that seals are notdogs. If asked
why, they might answer, “Because they don’t have legs the way dogs do.”
As is evident from the above, concepts are formed by both positive and nega-
tive exemplars. A positive exemplaris an object or an idea that fits the concept,
that can be contained within it. A negative exemplaris an object or an idea that
does not fit the concept, that cannot be contained within it. For Tammy, her pet
dog at home is a positive exemplar of the concept “dog.” The seal at the aquar-
ium is a negative exemplar of the concept “dog.” However, it is a positive exem-
plar of the concept “seal” or “aquatic animal.” (Without an adjective before it, the
word exemplarmeans “a typical example.”)(a) An object or idea that fits a given concept, that can be contained within it, is called called
.(b) An object or idea that does not fit a given concept, that can not be contained within it,
is called.
Answers: (a) a positive exemplar; (b) a negative exemplar.
A disjunctive concepttreats perceived attributes in either-or terms. The
classic example of a disjunctive concept is a strike in baseball. A strike is eithera ball
that goes through the strike zone and is not swung at ora ball that is swung at and
missed, even if it’s outside of the strike zone. Let’s say that forty-year-old Carl
says, “I will drink any kind of wine except muscatel or port.” If he refuses a glass
of wine at a friend’s house, it is possible to reflect that the host must have offered
Carl either muscatel or port. “Wines that Carl won’t drink” is, in this case, a dis-
junctive concept.
A relational concepttreats perceived attributes in terms of some connection
between objects or ideas such as “more than,” “less than,” “bigger than,” “more
beautiful than,” and so forth. A concept such as “cheapskate” is a relational con-
cept. Nolan is a regular customer for breakfast in a family restaurant in a small