Expertise and categorization

Honeck, Richard P.; Firment, Michael; Case, Tammy J. S.

doi:10.3758/bf03334732

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(16 reference statements)

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“…Within the expert domain, advanced bird experts and fish experts produced significantly more behavioral attributes than physical attributes. This finding fits with previous descriptions of expert categorical knowledge that maintain that experts are able to categorize on the basis of abstract (deep) features, whereas novices are bound to perceptible (superficial) features (Chi, Glaser, & Farr, 1988;Chi et al, 1989;Gobbo & Chi, 1986;Honeck, Firment, & Case, 1987). Intermediate experts and novices produced comparable numbers of behavioral and physical attributes.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Effects of varying levels of expertise on the basic level of categorization.

Johnson¹,

Mervis²

1997

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

234

213

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Six experiments were conducted on the effects of expertise on basic-level categorization. Individuals with varying levels of knowledge about songbirds generated lists of attributes, named objects, identified and discriminated among object silhouettes, verified category membership at 4 hierarchical levels, and visually identified songbirds primed either by species-specific, related, or unrelated birdsong. Results indicated that the original basic level never lost its privileged status. Expertise increased access to categorical information at the subordinate level for intermediate experts and at both the subordinate and sub-subordinate levels for advanced experts, causing these sublevels to function as basic. Throughout the continuum of expertise, conceptual knowledge interacted with perception. Accordingly, experts attended to different and more subtle perceptual features than novices.Whether one is an expert birder, tropical fish hobbyist, mineralogist, or a 5-year-old dinosaur enthusiast, a critical aspect of expertise acquisition involves categorizing and naming the objects within the expert domain. An important empirical question concerns the outcome of this heightened knowledge of category names and attributes. Is there one universal level of abstraction at which all individuals find it most useful to think about objects because of the perceptual information available in the natural world? Or do experts and novices naturally think about objects at different levels of specificity? This question has intrigued both psychologists and cognitive anthropologists for several decades and has led to a great deal of theorizing in both disciplines concerning the degree to which categorization is a constructive process. The aim of the present research was to determine to what extent the universal level of abstraction maintains its primacy throughout the continuum of expertise by

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Effects of varying levels of expertise on the basic level of categorization.

Johnson¹,

Mervis²

1997

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

234

213

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Studies in this area investigate why certain individuals are able to develop exceptional levels of skills and knowledge in a specific domain, such as mathematics, music, or chess and aim to identify individual learning strategies and personality traits to explain the exceptional abilities of experts (Ericsson, 2005). It has, for example, been shown that experts can store more information in short-term memory (Ericsson & Chase, 1982), are better able to distinguish between important and unimportant information (Biederman & Shiffrar, 1987), can process larger amounts of information simultaneously (Chase & Simon, 1973), have more differentiated knowledge structures (Boster & Johnson, 1989), and develop more abstract categories (Honeck, Firment, & Chase, 1987) compared to non-experts. However, neither the motivation for sharing these exceptional skills nor the influence of the social context in which the sharing of expertise with others takes place has been addressed in past research.…”

Section: Expertise and Expert Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Feedback and Expert Status in Knowledge Sharing Dilemmas

Moser

2017

Applied Psychology

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Groups and organisations set cooperative goals for their members, yet in reality some team members contribute more than others to these goals. Experts, in particular, face a social dilemma: from the group's perspective they should share their knowledge, whereas individually they are better off not sharing, because acquiring knowledge is costly and they would give up a competitive advantage. Two experiments (N1 = 96, N2 = 192) tested the hypothesis, derived from indirect reciprocity theory, that experts contribute more if their status is being recognised. Expert status was manipulated under different performance feedback conditions and the impact on people's contributions in two different knowledge sharing tasks was analysed. In both studies, experts contributed more when feedback was individualised and public, ensuring both individual status rewards and public recognition. In contrast, novices contributed more when performance feedback was collective, regardless of whether it was public or private feedback. Novices did not have to fear negative performance evaluations under group feedback and could gain in social status as members of a successful group. Social value orientation moderated expert contributions in Study 2, with proself‐oriented experts being particularly susceptible to reputation gains. The studies contribute to the neglected aspect of motivation in knowledge sharing dilemmas where collective and individual interests are not necessarily aligned.

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“…This line of research has also shown that what we know about categorization can be specific to the context and to the experiences of individuals (Honeck, Firment, and Case [], Proffitt, Coley, and Medin [], Ahn et al. []).…”

Section: Background and Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Experienced Users Evaluate Hybrid Financial Instruments?

Clor-Proell

Koonce

White

2016

Journal of Accounting Research

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Hybrid financial instruments contain features of both liabilities and equity. Standard setters continue to struggle with “getting the classification right” for these complex instruments. In this paper, we experimentally test whether the features of hybrid instruments affect the credit‐related judgments of experienced finance professionals, even when the hybrid instruments are already classified as liabilities or equity. Our results suggest that getting the classification right is not of primary importance for these experienced users, as they largely rely on the underlying features of the instrument to make their judgments. A second experiment shows that experienced users’ reliance on features generalizes to several features that often characterize hybrid instruments. However, we also find that experienced users vary in their beliefs about which individual features are most important in distinguishing between liabilities and equity. Together, our results highlight the importance of effective disclosure of hybrid instruments’ features.

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Expertise and categorization

Cited by 19 publications

References 15 publications

Effects of varying levels of expertise on the basic level of categorization.

Effects of varying levels of expertise on the basic level of categorization.

The Influence of Feedback and Expert Status in Knowledge Sharing Dilemmas

How Do Experienced Users Evaluate Hybrid Financial Instruments?

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