Basic level of concepts in formal concept analysis

Abstract

The paper presents a preliminary study on basic level of concepts in the framework of formal concept analysis (FCA). The basic level of concepts is an important phenomenon studied in the psychology of concepts. We argue that this phenomenon may be utilized in FCA for selecting important concepts. In the other direction, we argue that FCA provides a simple framework for studying the phenomenon itself. In this preliminary study, we attempt to draw the attention of researchers in FCA to the basic level of concepts. Furthermore, we propose a formalization of one of the several existing psychological views of the basic level, present experiments, and outline future research in this direction. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.