On the Representation and Use of Semantic Categories: A Survey and Prospectus

Abstract

This paper is intended as a brief introduction to several issues concerning semantic categories. These are the everyday, factual groupings of world knowledge according to some similarity in characteristics. Some psychological data concerning the structure, formation, and use of categories is surveyed. Then several psychological models (set-theoretic and network) are considered. Various artificial intelligence representations (concerning the symbol mapping and recognition problems) dealing with similar issues are also reviewed. It is argued that these data and representations approach semantic categories at too abstract a level and a set of guidelines which may be helpful in constructing a microworld are given.