Category Quest
How do categories mean? How do they shape their contents?
Our readings for this week converge on several key points:
 The cognitive structures in our brains cannot be separated from how we live as people: in our
physical embodiment in the world, in the patterns of our social activity, and in the cultural
traditions that we participate in.
 Our cognitive structures are instantiated in, and inseparable from, our use of language in the
social world.
Categories, as expressed through language, form a key cognitive structure for human beings. Instead of
individually processing each tree we encounter as a unique item, we offload much of the cognitive load
onto the class of trees and its shared characteristics.
All linguistic/cognitive categories have a certain degree of fluidity in their application, and they also vary
across layers of experience: individual, social, cultural. In this exercise, we will begin to examine how
category structure and item assignment can suggest certain interpretations of the world.
Your first mission: comparing categories in different information systems (20 minutes)
What is the category structure of “furniture” as expressed in these examples?
For each example, you might consider the following questions:
 What is inside “furniture”?
 What is not inside “furniture”?
 Which members seem central to the category, and which members seem peripheral?
 What characterizes central members as opposed to peripheral members?
 What are the relationships between category members?
 Can you detect an idealized cognitive model (ICM) that motivates the category structure? What
does this ICM involve?
Comparing all the examples, you might consider the following questions:
 How do category members differ between instantiations of “furniture”?
 How is “the information” of a category member different from one instantiation of “furniture” to
the next? (e.g., if “chair” is a member of multiple instantiations of “furniture”)
 How is “furniture” different from one instantiation to the next?
 Are there differences in motivating ICMs?
 How do social and cultural elements play out in these category instantiations?
Example #1
Example #2
Example #3
Example #4
Example #5
Example #6
Your second mission: Interpreting items based on the categories that contain them (10 minutes)
What does it mean for each book to be included in a different genre category?
Example #1: Huckleberry Finn
Example #2: Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things
Extra: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Extra: Atonement