Faut-il abandonner l'idée de catégorisation ou lui conserver une fonction plus restreinte, diversifiée, domaniale ? On se demande ce qui peut être préservé de la conception transcendantale pour prolonger son évolution récente au-delà de Wittgenstein, Goodman et Peirce. On propose une approche interrogative, présuppositionnelle et textologique qui lui conserve assez de fonctions , pour qu'il reste significatif de parler de catégorisation. Au lieu d'être immobiles, les catégories ont vocation à commander la recherche, qu'elle soit enquête scientifique ou même quête religieuse. (...) Un concept devient catégorial pour autant qu'il ouvre un domaine à la recherche, la guide ou lui permet de se réorganiser. A first question is raised, whether the idea of categorisation should be altogether dismissed or retained, but with more restricted, diversified and less extensive functions. The second question deals with what of the transcendantal dogma can be maintained in order to extend its recent developments beyond Wittgenstein, Goodman and Peirce. An interrogative, pre suppositional and textological approach is put forward, which could preserve enough functions to allow to go on speaking of categorisation with some kind of relevance. Far from being immovable, the categories indeed call for leadership in matters of research, be it scientific investigation or sacred religious quest. It appears that a concept becomes categorial in so far as it breaks fresh ground for research, provides guidance and enables it to perform self reorganisation. (shrink)

During the course of this article, we examine the use of membership categorisation practices by a high-profile celebrity public social media account that has been understood to generate interest, attention and controversy across the UK media ecology. We utilise a data set of harvested tweets gathered from a high-profile public ‘celebrity antagonist’ in order to systematically identify types of antagonistic formulation that have generated different levels of interest within the social media community and beyond. Drawing from classic ethnomethodological studies of (...) banner headlines and other means of generating public interest and ‘making sense’, we respecify high-profile antagonistic tweets as category formulations that exhibit particular and regular membership category features that are reflexively bound to potential antagonistic readings, interest and controversy. In conclusion, we consider how such formulations may be understood to represent resources that constitute ignition points within antagonistic flows of communication and information that can be metaphorically understood as ‘digital wildfires’. (shrink)

Categorisation models of metaphor interpretation are based on the premiss that categorisation statements and comparison statements are fundamentally different types of assertion. Against this assumption, we argue that the difference is merely a quantitative one: ‘x is a y’ unilaterally entails ‘x is like a y’, and therefore the latter is merely weaker than the former. Moreover, if ‘x is like a y’ licenses the inference that x is not a y, then that inference is a scalar implicature. We defend (...) these claims partly on theoretical grounds and partly on the basis of experimental evidence. A suite of experiments indicates both that ‘x is a y’ unilaterally entails that x is like a y, and that in several respects the non-y inference behaves exactly as one should expect from a scalar implicature. We discuss the implications of our view of categorisation and comparison statements for categorisation models of metaphor interpretation. (shrink)

Although recent work has emphasised the importance of naïve theories to categorisation, there has been little work examining the grain of analysis at which causal information normally influences categorisation. That level of analysis may often go unappreciated because of an “illusion of explanatory depth”, in which people think they mentally represent causal explanatory relations in far more detail than they really do. Naïve theories therefore might seem to be irrelevant to categorisation, or perhaps they only involve noting the presence of (...) unknown essences. I argue instead that adults and children alike effectively track high-level causal patterns, often outside awareness, and that this ability is essential to categorisation. Three examples of such pattern-tracking are described. The shallowness of our explanatory understandings may be further supported by a reliance on the division of cognitive labour that occurs in all cultures, a reliance that arises from well-developed abilities to cluster knowledge in the minds of others. (shrink)

Affective congruency effects in the evaluation task can be explained by either spreading of activation or response competition. Eliminating effects of response compatibility by using other tasks (semantic categorisation, naming task) typically also eliminates affective congruency effects. However, there is no need for processing the affective information of the stimuli in these tasks either, which could be necessary for an affectively mediated spreading of activation (Spruyt et al., 2007, 2009, 2012). We introduced a new task to further test this hypothesis. (...) The valent/neutral-categorisation task does not confound affective congruency with response compatibility, but still requires a processing of the stimuli's valence. No affective congruency effect was obtained with this task in two experiments, disfavouring a conditional spreading activation account. On the other hand, a significant priming effect was found for associated word pairs in Experiment 1, providing evidence for the sensitivity of the task to detect spreading activation processes. (shrink)

Taking a detour to reach a goal is intelligent behavior based on making inferences. The main purpose of the present research is to show how such apparently complex behavior can emerge from basic mechanisms such as contextual categorisation and goal attribution when perceiving people. We presentacacia (Action by Contextually Automated Categorising Interactive Agents), a computer model implemented using StarLogo software, grounded in the principles of Artificial Life (Al), capable of simulating the behavior of a group of agents with a goal (...) (for instance, to find a treasure in a treasure hunt ) in an environment where obstacles mask the goal site. The results of the simulations show that agents reach the goal the fastest when they follow each other and take detours. We argue that these results indicate that intelligent adaptive behavior is based on the contextual categorisation of environmental constrainst (that is, obstacles and other agents). (shrink)

Despite the subjective experience of a continuous and coherent external world, we will argue that the perception and categorisation of visual space is constrained by the spatial resolution of the sensory systems but also and above all, by the pre-reflective representations of the body in action. Recent empirical data in cognitive neurosciences will be presented that suggest that multidimensional categorisation of perceptual space depends on body representations at both an experiential and a functional level. Results will also be resumed that (...) show that representations of the body in action are pre-reflective in nature as only some aspects of the pre-reflective states can be consciously experienced. Finally, a neuro-cognitive model based on the integration of afferent and efferent information will be described, which suggests that action simulation and associated predicted sensory consequences may represent the underlying principle that enables pre-reflective representations of the body for space categorisation and selection for action. (shrink)

In Categorisation in Indian Philosophy: Thinking Inside the Box, Jessica Frazier has brought together an impressive array of scholars who have contributed nine essays, plus an introductory and concluding chapter, both written by her, which collectively provide a most fruitful perspective for examining classical South Asian traditions of thought. Creating categorial frameworks was certainly a prolific activity among the ancient and medieval authors of the darśanas, and indeed these authors drew heavily from pre-scholastic texts and language to build their systems. (...) Frazier in her concluding chapter gives a helpful synopsis of the various roles played by categories in Indian philosophies, classifying them as.. (shrink)

Vagueness is understood as the problem of associating imprecise application criteria with ordinary predicates such as ‘bald’ or ‘blue’. It is often construed as due to one’s tolerance to a minute difference in forming a verdict on the application of a vague predicate. This paper reports an experiment conducted to test the effect of tolerance, using as paradigm categorisation tasks performed with respect to transitional series, e.g., a series of tomatoes from red to orange. The findings suggest a negative effect (...) of tolerance on categorisation with vague predicates. The implication of the findings for certain commonly-held assumptions about tolerance is discussed. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate and describe the content in school rules by developing a category system of school rules, and thus making the logic behind different types of rules in school explicit. Data were derived from an ethnographic study conducted in two primary schools in Sweden. In order to analyse the data, grounded theory methodology was adapted. The analysis resulted in a category system of school rules, containing the following main categories: (a) relational rules, (b) structuring (...) rules, (c), protecting rules, (d), personal rules and (e) etiquette rules. In the light of this categorisation, more consciously pedagogical and professional work with rules can be conducted. The category system can counteract vagueness and unreasonableness, as well as highlighting the content, logic and functions of different school rules. (shrink)

Spruyt obtained an affective congruency effect in a valent/neutral categorisation task, which contrasts with the absence of such an effect in the same task that was reported by Werner and Rothermund. The crucial difference between the two studies is that Spruyt presented only valent primes, whereas Werner and Rothermund presented equal amounts of valent and neutral primes and targets in their experiments. Removing the neutral primes introduces a confound of affective matches with the required response. Affective congruency effects in Spruyt's (...) study can be explained straightforwardly in terms of such an affective matching strategy. To demonstrate the influence of matching strategies in the valent/neutral task without neutral primes, we conducted an experiment in which we induced an affective mismatching strategy. In support of our reasoning, this study revealed an affective incongruency effect in the valent/neutral categorisation task. We conclude that affective congruency as well as incongruency effects in the valent/neutral categorisation task reflect post-lexical affective (mis-)matching strategies rather than encoding facilitation. (shrink)

Two agents endowed with different categorisations engage in bargaining to reach an understanding and agree on a common categorisation. We model the process as a simple non-cooperative game and demonstrate three results. When the initial disagreement is focused, the bargaining process has a zero-sum structure. When the disagreement is widespread, the zero-sum structure disappears and the unique equilibrium requires a retraction of consensus: two agents who individually associate a region with the same category end up rebranding it under a different (...) category. Finally, we show that this last equilibrium outcome is Pareto dominated by a cooperative solution that avoids retraction; that is, the unique equilibrium agreement may be inefficient. (shrink)

The question of whether colour categorisation is determined by nontrivial constraints (i.e., universal neurophysiological properties of visual neurons) is an empirical issue concerning the organisation of the internal colour space. Rosch has provided psychological evidence that categories are organised around focal colours and that the organisation is universal; this commentary reconsiders that evidence.

We re-evaluate existing data that demonstrate a large amount of variability in the content of categories considering the fact that these data have been obtained in a specific task: the production of features of single isolated categories. We present new data that reveal a large consensus when participants have to judge whether or not a given feature is characteristic of a category and we show that classification tasks produce an intermediate level of consensus. We argue that the differences observed between (...) tasks are due to the extent of implied context and we propose a reinterpretation of typicality effects, demonstrating that they are compatible with the existence of a stable conceptual core. In order to explain how the existence of a conceptual core is consistent with variability due to context, we present a theory of categorisation based on a property tree organisation. Within a domain of description, we distinguish between semantic implications (flying → moving) and empirical implications (flying → having wings) as well as between properties used to describe objects. Semantic implications serve to build property lines and Galois lattices are used to reveal category structures according to empirical implications. We show that variability in the category content may be explained by the fact that some properties are emphasised while others are masked according to the context. (shrink)

Shedding light on the way in which Indian philosophical traditions crafted an elaborate picture of the world, this book brings Indian thinkers into dialogue with modern philosophy and global concerns. For those interested in philosophical traditions in general, this book will establish a foundation for further comparative perspectives on philosophy. For those concerned with the understanding of Indic culture, it will provide a platform for the continued renaissance of research into India's rich philosophical traditions.

Facial race and sex cues can influence the magnitude of the happy categorisation advantage. It has been proposed that implicit race or sex based evaluations drive this influence. Within this account a uniform influence of social category cues on the happy categorisation advantage should be observed for all negative expressions. Support has been shown with angry and sad expressions but evidence to the contrary has been found for fearful expressions. To determine the generality of the evaluative congruence account, participants categorised (...) happiness with either sadness, fear, or surprise displayed on White male as well as White female, Black male, or Black female faces across three experiments. Faster categorisation of happy than negative expressions was observed for female faces when presented among White male faces, and for White male faces when presented among Black male faces. These results support the evaluative congruence account when both positive and negative expressions are presented. (shrink)

Individuals vary in perceptual accuracy when categorising facial expressions, yet it is unclear how these individual differences in non-clinical population are related to cognitive processing stages at facial information acquisition and interpretation. We tested 104 healthy adults in a facial expression categorisation task, and correlated their categorisation accuracy with face-viewing gaze allocation and personal traits assessed with Autism Quotient, anxiety inventory and Self-Monitoring Scale. The gaze allocation had limited but emotion-specific impact on categorising expressions. Specifically, longer gaze at the eyes (...) and nose regions were coupled with more accurate categorisation of disgust and sad expressions, respectively. Regarding trait measurements, higher autistic score was coupled with better recognition of sad but worse recognition of anger expressions, and contributed to categorisation bias towards sad expressions; whereas higher anxiety level was associated with greater categorisation accuracy across all expressions and with increased tendency of gazing at the nose region. It seems that both anxiety and autistic-like traits were associated with individual variation in expression categorisation, but this association is not necessarily mediated by variation in gaze allocation at expression-specific local facial regions. The results suggest that both facial information acquisition and interpretation capabilities contribute to individual differences in expression categorisation within non-clinical populations. (shrink)

Facial attributes such as race, sex, and age can interact with emotional expressions; however, only a couple of studies have investigated the nature of the interaction between facial age cues and emotional expressions and these have produced inconsistent results. Additionally, these studies have not addressed the mechanism/s driving the influence of facial age cues on emotional expression or vice versa. In the current study, participants categorised young and older adult faces expressing happiness and anger or sadness by their age and (...) their emotional expression. Age cues moderated categorisation of happiness vs. anger and sadness in the absence of an influence of emotional expression on age categorisation times. This asymmetrical interaction suggests that facial age cues are obligatorily processed prior to emotional expressions. Finding a categorisation advantage for happiness expressed on young faces relative to both anger and sadness which are negative in valence but different in their congruence with old age stereotypes or structural overlap with age cues suggests that the observed influence of facial age cues on emotion perception is due to the congruence between relatively positive evaluations of young faces and happy expressions. (shrink)

Intuitive-automatic processes are crucial for making judgements and decisions. The fascinating complexity of these processes has attracted many decision researchers, prompting them to start investigating intuition empirically and to develop numerous models. Dual-process models assume a clear distinction between intuitive and deliberate processes but provide no further differentiation within both categories. We go beyond these models and argue that intuition is not a homogeneous concept, but a label used for different cognitive mechanisms. We suggest that these mechanisms have to be (...) distinguished to allow for fruitful investigations of intuition. Specifically, we argue that researchers should concentrate on investigating the processes underlying intuition before making strong claims about its performance. We summarise current models for intuition and propose a categorisation according to the underlying cognitive processes: (a) associative intuition based on simple learning-retrieval processes, (b) matching intuition based on comparisons with prototypes/exemplars, (c) accumulative intuition based on automatic evidence accumulation, and (d) constructive intuition based on construction of mental representations. We discuss how this differentiation might help to clarify the relationship between affect and intuition and we derive a very general hypothesis as to when intuition will lead to good decisions and when it will go astray. (shrink)

Critical (necessary or sufficient) features in categorisation have a long history, but the empirical evidence makes their existence questionable. Nevertheless, there are some cases that suggest critical feature effects. The purpose of the present work is to offer some insight into why classification decisions might misleadingly appear as if they involve critical features. Utilising Tversky's (1977) contrast model of similarity, we suggest that when an object has a sparser representation, changing any of its features is more likely to lead to (...) a change in identity than it would in objects that have richer representations. Experiment 1 provides a basic test of this suggestion with artificial stimuli, whereby objects with a rich or a sparse representation were transformed by changing one of their features. As expected, we observed more identity judgements in the former case. Experiment 2 further confirms our hypothesis, with realistic stimuli, by assuming that superordinate categories have sparser representations than subordinate ones. These results offer some insight into the way feature changes may or may not lead to identity changes in classification decisions. (shrink)

Technological shifts within the video game industry have enabled many games to evolve into platforms for repeated expenditure, rather than a one-time purchase product. Monetising a game as a service is challenging, and there is concern that some monetisation strategies may constitute unfair or exploitative practices which are not adequately covered by existing law. We asked 1104 players of video games to describe a time when they had been exposed to transactions which were perceived to be misleading, aggressive or unfair. (...) We found 35 separate techniques over eight domains: game dynamics designed to drive spending, product not meeting expectations, monetisation of basic quality of life, predatory advertising, in-game currency, pay to win, general presence of microtransactions and other. Notably, several of these reported practices seem to not align with existing UK consumer protection regulations. We discuss this potential misalignment, as well as the implications of identifying what players believe to be problematic monetisation techniques. (shrink)

We amplify possible complications to the tidy division between early vision and later categorisation which arise when we consider the perception of human faces. Although a primitive face-detecting system, used for social attention, may indeed be integral to “early vision,” the relationship between this and diverse other uses made of information from faces is far from clear.

Saunders and van Brakel propose that we rethink or reject much of current colour theory. Many of the problems they cite appear to call for further research rather than a radical rethinking of colour theory. The controversy described in this target article appears to be itself a case of or something that does not exist.