ABSTRACT
In this chapter we focus on the representation of concepts. We begin with what seems to be a paradox: How can nonobvious features be essential or core to a concept at the same time that concepts are context sensitive and ever changing? On the one hand, a growing literature argues that theories determine the structure and function of categories, at times even overriding salient perceptual information, and that even children treat concepts as having essences (S. A. Gelman, Coley, & Gottfried, 1994; Medin, 1989). On the other hand, concepts are highly flexible, sensitive to context, variable depending on the task, and influenced by perceptually immediate (online) properties (Barsalou, 1993a; Jones & L. B. Smith, 1993). Thus, there would seem to be a contradiction here: One proposal is that essences are at the core of concepts; the other proposal is that perceptual features are core or, in the extreme, that concepts have no core. Accordingly, a number of scholars suggest that essentialism is incompatible with context sensitivity (Braisby, Franks, & Hampton, 1996; Malt, 1994; L. B. Smith & Heise, 1992).
