Conceptual combination

Conceptual combination is a fundamental cognitive process by which two or more existing basic concepts are mentally synthesized to generate a composite, higher-order concept. The products of this process are sometimes referred to as "complex concepts." Combining concepts allows individuals to use a finite number of concepts which they already understand to construct a potentially limitless quantity of new, related concepts. It is an essential component of many abilities, such as perception, language, synthetic reasoning, creative thought and abstraction.

Conceptual combination is an important concept in the fields of cognitive psychology and cognitive science.

The mechanism by which conceptual combination occurs is debatable, both on cognitive and neurological levels. As such, multiple models have been developed or applied to better define how the process occurs.

Cognitive models attempt to functionally outline the mental computation involved in conceptual combination.

Constraint theory stipulates that the concept that results from an attempt at conceptual combination is controlled by three constraints known as diagnosticity, plausibility and informativeness. Diagnosticity refers to the a complex concept's possession of the defining properties of its component simple concepts. Because such properties are diagnostic of the component concepts, at least some of them should be diagnostic of the higher-order representations constructed from those concepts. Plausibility refers to consistency with existing knowledge and prior experience. It is based on the assumption that a complex concept should be reasonably relevant to the context in which it is used. This assumption makes the most sense in a practical, linguistic context, particularly when a speaker is catering to the understanding of the listener. Informativeness is the property of having more meaning or properties than any individual component. If a complex concept were not distinguishable from any given component, it would be identical to that component. Because nothing can logically be both a component of something and the totality of something simultaneously, a complex concept must at least be the sum of its parts. Many argue that the interaction among component concepts should allow a complex concept to be greater than that sum. If multiple possible ways to structure or interpret a complex concept exist, the one which best satisfies or most satisfies these constraints is the one which will be used. The paradigm upon which constraint theory is based is computational, and therefore views the mind as a processor which operates on the basis of standard problem-solving protocols (i.e. algorithms and heuristics).

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