Teachers categorizing of students profoundly affects the educational process and can subvert open teacher–student communication and create a vicious circle of student’s lack of support and academic failure.

Recent research has also empirically established the energy-saving and efficiency-enhancing properties of stereotyping (Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994). As Macrae et al. concluded, “Stereotypes, accordingly, serve to simplify perception, judgment, and action.

One problem is that social categorization distorts our perceptions such that we tend to exaggerate the differences between people from different social groups while at the same time perceiving members of groups (and particularly outgroups) as more similar to each other than they actually are.

Categorization and classification allow humans to organize things, objects, and ideas that exist around them and simplify their understanding of the world. Categorization is important in learning, prediction, inference, decision making, language, and many forms of organisms’ interaction with their environments.

Categorization helps users navigate or browse through collections, Web sites or search results. By grouping too many discrete items into understandable categories, users can quickly eliminate what is irrelevant or not interesting, and just pay attention to what matters most.

Categorizing sounds in particular is of vital importance to handle the variety and complexity of complex environments and subsequently guide action (e.g., avoid an approaching car, attend to a crying baby, or answer a ringing phone).

Sounds can be divided into consonants and vowels. The former can be characterised according to 1) place, 2) manner of articulation and 3) voice (voiceless or voiced). For vowels one uses a coordinate system called a vowel quandrangle within which actual vowel values are located.

How to Categorize and Take Inventory of Stored Items

1. Categorize your belongings by room, activity or item size.
2. Label boxes, bins and containers.
3. Place most frequently used items in the front.
4. Sketch a diagram.
5. Store similar items together.
6. Utilize vertical space.

We then describe the primary brain areas involved in categorization learning: the visual cortex, the prefrontal and parietal cortices, the basal ganglia, and the medial temporal lobe.