Exemplars, Prototypes and Conceptual Spaces

This paper deals with the problem of the computational representation of “non classical” concepts, i.e. concepts that do not admit a definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions (sect. 1). We review some empirical evidence from the field of cognitive psychology, suggesting that concept representation is not an unitary phenomenon. In particular, it seems likely that human beings employ (among other things) both prototypes and exemplar based representations in order to deal with non classical concepts (sect. 2). We suggest that a cognitively in-spired, hybrid prototype-exemplar based approach could be useful also in the field of artificial computational systems (sect. 3). In sect. 4, we take into consideration conceptual spaces as a suitable framework for developing some aspects of such a hybrid approach (sect. 5). Some conclusion follows (sect. 6).

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