Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning

2012 Edition
| Editors: Norbert M. Seel

Human Feature Learning

Reference work entry
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_1062
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Synonyms

 Basic units;  Factorial learning;  Parts;  Primitives

Definition

The term feature refers to a primitive element of the mental representation of an object, concept, or event in a psychological model of human behavior. Features provide information about the identity of objects and in what ways objects are similar or different to each other. Human feature learning refers to theoretical and empirical arguments that the features people use to form representations can change with experience. Although in the psychological and computational literature parts and primitives are often used as synonyms of feature, we use part and primitive to refer to an aspect of an object in the world and feature to refer to an aspect of the mental representation of the object.

Theoretical Background

Depending on the particular psychological theory, the mental representation of an object may be an unstructured set of features or it may include relations between features. For example, a bachelor could...

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References

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of PsychologyUniversity of California, BerkeleyBerkeleyUSA