Handbook of Categorization in Cognitive Science

by Henri Cohen (Editor), Claire Lefebvre (Editor)

Overview

Categorization, the basic cognitive process of arranging objects into categories, is a fundamental process in human and machine intelligence and is central to investigations and research in cognitive science. Until now, categorization has been approached from singular disciplinary perspectives with little overlap or communication between the disciplines involved (Linguistics, Psychology, Philosophy, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Cognitive Anthropology). Henri Cohen and Claire Lefebvre have gathered together a stellar collection of contributors in this unique, ambitious attempt to bring together converging disciplinary and conceptual perspectives on this topic.

"Categorization is a key concept across the range of cognitive sciences, including linguistics and philosophy, yet hitherto it has been hard to find accounts that go beyond the concerns of one or two individual disciplines. The Handbook of Categorization in Cognitive Science provides just the sort of interdisciplinary approach that is necessary to synthesize knowledge from the different fields and provide the basis for future innovation."

Professor Bernard Comrie, Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany

"Anyone concerned with language, semantics, or categorization will want to have this encyclopedic collection."

Professor Eleanor Rosch, Dept of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780080457413
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	10/25/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	1136
File size:	15 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Dr. Henri Cohen’s research interests focus on speech and language development and neurological disorders, learning and emotion in Parkinson’s disease, complexity and learning, skill acquisition and interference, and origin of language. He is Professor of Psychology (ret.) at Université du Québec à Montréal, and visiting scholar, at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Universidad de la Frontera, Chile. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, and edited two books (with Elsevier) on cognition and consciousness, and on categorization, and a book on the origins of language (Benjamins). He is the current editor of Brain and Cognition (Elsevier), and past editor of Journal of Neurolinguistics (Elsevier).

Department of Linguistics, University of Quebec, Montreal, Canada. Dr. Lefebvre studies: linguistic theory, syntactic category theory; cognitive processes involved in the formation of new languages; languages in contact, French, Quechua, Creole Haitian, Fon, and other African languages.

Table of Contents

Categorization in Cognitive Science. Semantic Categories. Syntactic Categories. Acquisition of Categories. Neuroscience of Categorization and Category Learning. Categories in Perception and Inference. Grounding, Recognition, and Reasoning in Categorization. Machine Category Learning. Data Mining for Categories and Ontologies. The Naturalization of Categories.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

This is the first publication to bring together converging disciplinary and conceptual perspectives on categorization.

Editorial Reviews

"Categorization is a key concept across the range of cognitive sciences, including linguistics and philosophy, yet hitherto it has been hard to find accounts that go beyond the concerns of one or two individual disciplines. [This book] provides just the sort of interdisciplinary approach that is necessary to synthesize knowledge from the different fields and provide the basis for future innovation." —Professor Bernard Comrie, Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany

"Anyone concerned with language, semantics, or categorization will want to have this encyclopedic collection." —Professor Eleanor Rosch, Dept of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, USA

"This is a far-reaching, encyclopedia collection, which fully meets its major aim in bringing in, for the first time, various disciplines together around a single theme such as categorization. The joint work invested in the collection results in cross-fertilization of methodologies and ideas, which, as a whole, contributes greatly not only to our understanding of categorization but of human cognition in general. One of this volume's strengths is a number of common themes running through all the chapters...this is a very coherent and solid collection that is organized in such a ways that individual chapters can be studied independently from each other...a valuable contribution to the concept of category/categorization, which, in addition, shows that an interdisciplineary approach is not only powerful, but essential for studying cognitive science as a whole." —Aleksandar Carapic (Universtiy of Belgrade) for PRAGMATICS & COGNITION

From the Publisher

Reviewer: Christopher J Graver, PhD, ABPP-CN(Madigan Healthcare System)
Description: This book introduces the concept of categorization and its fundamental nature in cognitive science through a wide variety of perspectives, but also provides a basis for future research. The coverage ranges from categorization in semantics to models in computer science to social categorization.
Purpose: The main purpose of this book is to bring together leading researchers in cognitive categorization to provide a multidisciplinary look at this phenomenon in a single volume.
Audience: The main audience for this book includes cognitive scientists from a variety of perspectives. It would also be appropriate for students of the cognitive sciences, as well as those in related disciplines (e.g., clinical, social, developmental, or personality psychology; linguistics; and education).
Features: The first striking feature of this book is its sheer size. At over one thousand pages, it certainly has the making of a handbook. Each chapter begins with a detailed breakdown of the topics covered, ensuring easy referencing. The chapters often start with a brief abstract and contain concluding remarks, which tie together the data presented in the chapters. There are tables and figures that handily summarize the data and the section on neurobiology includes neuroimaging to help visually pinpoint the structures being discussed. There also are color plates at the end of the text. Although this is a comprehensive book, each chapter is generally concise and direct in its coverage of the topic at hand. The relevant data are presented and supported by generally recent research with little duplication of material. One weakness of this book is the index, which is inadequate for a volume of this length.
Assessment: This is an encyclopedic look at categorization. The authors have achieved their goal of providing a multidisciplinary perspective on this topic and have done so in a comprehensive manner. Relevant and current information is presented at an appropriate level and the text provides such a wide range of topics that most anyone will find something of interest. Readers particularly interested in cognitive science will likely find the entire book appealing. Although the price is somewhat high, abundant thought and effort clearly went into this book and it should suffice for the main, and perhaps only, text needed on categorization in cognitive science.

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