1. What are concepts?
   1. Mental representations of categories of objects, events, or other entities.
   2. Basis for making and communication
   3. Essential roles in human reasoning
   4. Essences of things
   5. Patterns of synaptic connections
   6. Discrete psychological phenomena
2. Similarity View of Concepts
   1. Classical-Attribute Isolation View of Concepts
      1. Representations of classes of objects, symbols, or events that are grouped together based on common properties or attributes
      2. Limitations
         1. specifying defining properties that exclude all nonmembers while capturing all properties of members is easier said than done.
         2. goodness of examples effect
   2. Prototype/Probabilistic View of Concepts
      1. Concepts are based on properties that are characteristics or typical of category
      2. Seeking more typical instances that have more of the characteristics associated with that category
      3. Limitation
         1. Difficulties in explaining combinations of concepts
   3. Exemplar View of Concepts
      1. People generalize concepts based on their cooccurrence or similarity to each other
      2. More conservative about discarding information that facilitates predictions
      3. Referring as a Relational View
         1. Intermediate between classical and actional views
         2. Concepts contain probabilistic and exemplar components
         3. Similar to semantic network theory - stress the importance of relational organization of concepts within a network of related concepts
   4. Both views assume that categorization is driven by similarity among examples of any category
3. Problems with Similarity Views of Concepts
   1. Assume...
      1. Similarity between instances increases as the number of features or properties they share increases, and decreases as a function of mismatching or nonessential attributes
      2. Features that determine similarity are at the same level of abstractness
      3. Similarity features are sufficient to describe conceptual structure, so a concept is equivalent to its list of features
   2. Numerous conceptual problems
   3. Inability to account for the varying functions of concepts
      1. Functions of concepts
         1. Classification
         2. Support inferences for understanding, explaining, and predicting
         3. Construct new concepts
         4. Communication
   4. Lack of coherence
4. Other Views of Concepts - Result from the limitations of similarity views of concepts
   1. Actional Views of Concepts
      1. Concepts are active, constructive and intentional
      2. Ways of organizing people's experinces
   2. Theory-based Views of Concepts
      1. Concepts are organized by theories
      2. Instruction should focus on the attributes plus explicitly represented relations of attributes and concept combinations
5. Concepts and Conceptual Change
   1. Humans accommodate concepts only if they are comprehensible and coherent with existing conceptualizations and theories
   2. The cognitive process of adapting and restructuring these theories is conceptual change
   3. Occurring when learners change their understanding of the concepts they use and how they are organized within a conceptual framework
   4. Necessary when information to be understood is inconsistent with personal beliefs and presuppositions
   5. Depending on metacognitive, motivational, and affective processes
6. Implications of Conceptual Change for Concept Learning and Assessment