Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

How is the outcome of the categorization process represented? This question has gone virtually unaddressed. A notable exception is Barsalou (2012) which proposes that categorization results in a type–token predication, whereby the type representation (e.g. DOG) is predicated of the token representation of the categorized individual (e.g. Fido). Another is Jackendoff (1983) which proposes that categorization results in a token representation being related to the type representation via a two-place IS-AN-INSTANCE-OF function. Despite important differences, both proposals assume that type and token representations are extrinsically related to one another. This contrasts with recent research (Prasada & Dillingham, 2009; Prasada, 2013) which makes use of instance-of-kind representations in which type and token are intrinsically related. This poster identifies theoretical and empirical implications of the two approaches for representing the output of categorization, and argues that these favor the instance-of-kind representations.