Get people to, as crudely as they like, draw/represent something’s definition (not sure if that is the right word) e.g. for “I ate” {I food-->mouth. Swallow} The arrow might have a fork and knife drawn next to it and/or a hand or just the word “transport” or “put in.” Food could just be the word food, or it could be a drawing of a specific food, or a few specific foods, or a a few properties of (your) food (concept) e.g. “will not choke you or can be chewed (without damage to teeth) so as to not choke you” “non poisonous” “can be digested for energy/nutrition or whatever food does.”
The idea is that for each part of the definition you do the whole thing again but in less detail, down to the level of detail of just using a word. It might also be a good idea as part of an exercise on recognising that other people organise things differently in their heads to have people look at each others’ ones, or make people do another definition with a different structure. e.g. instead of food-->mouth. PUT food IN mouth, or experiment with different definitions that fit the same word.
exercise for specificness
Get people to, as crudely as they like, draw/represent something’s definition (not sure if that is the right word) e.g. for “I ate” {I food-->mouth. Swallow} The arrow might have a fork and knife drawn next to it and/or a hand or just the word “transport” or “put in.” Food could just be the word food, or it could be a drawing of a specific food, or a few specific foods, or a a few properties of (your) food (concept) e.g. “will not choke you or can be chewed (without damage to teeth) so as to not choke you” “non poisonous” “can be digested for energy/nutrition or whatever food does.”
The idea is that for each part of the definition you do the whole thing again but in less detail, down to the level of detail of just using a word. It might also be a good idea as part of an exercise on recognising that other people organise things differently in their heads to have people look at each others’ ones, or make people do another definition with a different structure. e.g. instead of food-->mouth. PUT food IN mouth, or experiment with different definitions that fit the same word.