Mental categories that group objects, events, or ideas based on shared features are called?

• A. Schemas
• B. Prototypes
• C. Concepts
• D. Theories

Answer: (C)

Concepts are mental categories that group objects, events, or ideas based on shared features. They give us a compact way to recognize and reason about things by organizing information around common attributes, so we can generalize from one instance to others.

This differs from schemas, which are broader knowledge frameworks about typical situations and expected sequences of events; they guide how we interpret and respond in context. Prototypes refer to the most representative or typical example of a category, used for quick judgments about new items. Theories are more comprehensive systems of ideas that explain relationships among concepts and make predictions.

So, when something is described as a way to group things by their shared features into a mental category, that most naturally points to the idea of a concept.