Eleanor Rosch’s research while affiliated with University of California, Berkeley and other places

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Publications (12)


Wittgenstein and Categorization Research in Cognitive Psychology
  • Chapter

January 1987

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78 Reads

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32 Citations

Eleanor Rosch

Research in psychology tends to reflect, sometimes self-consciously, prevailing philosophical viewpoints. Categorization is the area in cognitive psychology which deals with the ancient problem of universals, that is, with the fact that unique particular objects or events can be treated equivalently. Prior to the 1970s, categorization research tended to mirror the simplified worlds described in early Wittgenstein and in logical positivism. However, Wittgenstein’s later philosophy has revolutionary implications for many aspects of human thought, among them issues in categorization. In this paper, I will argue that modern research in natural categories is actually derived from Wittgensteinian insights, but ambivalently so: It has tended to work with the symptoms rather than the root of his challenge.


Cognition and Categorization

September 1979

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471 Reads

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864 Citations

The American Journal of Psychology

The papers in this book derive from a 1976 meeting sponsored by the Social Science Research Council to discuss the nature and principles of category formation. Part I contains 3 discussions of real-world categories, assuming that the people creating and using the systems can judge similarity between stimuli, perceive and process the attributes of a stimulus, and learn. Part II contains discussions of these 3 abilities, presenting a new theoretical approach to similarity, in which objects are viewed as collections of features, and similarity as a feature-matching process. This theory predicts (a) basic levels of abstraction where the ratio of common to distinctive features is maximized, and (b) the existence of reference items or category prototypes by which other items are judged. Part III studies concepts of representation which are basic to the previous discussions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)


Structural Basis of Typicality Effects
  • Article
  • Publisher preview available

November 1976

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208 Reads

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494 Citations

Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance

In a study with 249 Ss, it was hypothesized that the effects associated with degree of typicality in natural semantic categories can be generated as a function of the structure of artificial categories. Three types of category were used: (a) dot patterns, in which typicality was defined as similarity to a prototype pattern in overall configuration; (b) stick figures, in which typicality was defined as closeness to a prototype figure possessing the means of attributes for the category; and (c) letter strings, in which typicality was defined as the degree of family resemblance (overlap of letters) among category members. For all 3 category types, it was found that structural typicality determined ease of item learning, speed of classification of items after learning, ratings of the typicality of items, order in which items were generated in a production task, and facilitation or inhibition of responses to items in a priming paradigm. These typicality effects were obtained both when frequency of items was equated and when rates of learning were equated by inverting the relation between frequency and typicality. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

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TABLE 4
TABLE 5
TABLE 6
NINE TAXONOMIES USED AS STIMULI
NUMBEROF MOTOR MOVEMENTS IN COMMON AT EACH LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION

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Basic Objects in Natural Categories

July 1976

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7,705 Reads

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5,524 Citations

Cognitive Psychology

Eleanor Rosch

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[...]

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Categorizations which humans make of the concrete world are not arbitrary but highly determined. In taxonomies of concrete objects, there is one level of abstraction at which the most basic category cuts are made. Basic categories are those which carry the most information, possess the highest category cue validity, and are, thus, the most differentiated from one another. The four experiments of Part I define basic objects by demonstrating that in taxonomies of common concrete nouns in English based on class inclusion, basic objects are the most inclusive categories whose members: (a) possess significant numbers of attributes in common, (b) have motor programs which are similar to one another, (c) have similar shapes, and (d) can be identified from averaged shapes of members of the class. The eight experiments of Part II explore implications of the structure of categories. Basic objects are shown to be the most inclusive categories for which a concrete image of the category as a whole can be formed, to be the first categorizations made during perception of the environment, to be the earliest categories sorted and earliest named by children, and to be the categories most codable, most coded, and most necessary in language.


Relationships among goodness-of-example, category norms, and word frequency

March 1976

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91 Reads

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178 Citations

Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society

Used correlational analysis to study the relationship between 2 indices of the internal structure of natural-language categories: goodness-of-example (as measured by Ss' ratings) and item dominance (as assessed by category-norm data). For all 8 categories examined, the 2 variables were significantly positively correlated. Item dominance also had some positive relationship to word frequency, while goodness-of-example did not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)


The Nature of Mental Codes for Color Categories

November 1975

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172 Reads

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200 Citations

Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance

Used the technique of priming to study the nature of the mental representations generated by color names. The logic of the technique is that a prime can only facilitate a response if it contains some of the information needed for the response. The name of a basic color category, in primed trials, and the word blank, in unprimed trials, were presented to Ss in advance of a pair of colors. 6 experiments were conducted, employing a total of 190 undergraduates. In Exps I and III, it was found that for responses of same to physically identical colors, a prime presented 2 sec in advance of a color pair facilitated responses to good and inhibited responses to poor members of basic color categories. In other experiments the amount of practice and the interval of time between the prime and presentation of the stimulus were varied. It is concluded that the cognitive representation of color categories contains information used in encoding physical color stimuli and that the representation reflects the prototype structure of color categories. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)


Cognitive reference points

October 1975

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265 Reads

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1,251 Citations

Cognitive Psychology

Two methods were used to test the hypothesis that natural categories (such as colors, line orientations, and numbers) have reference point stimuli (such as focal colors, vertical and horizontal lines, and numbers that are multiples of 10) in relation to which other stimuli of the category are judged. In Experiment I, subjects placed pairs of stimuli into sentence frames consisting of linguistic “hedges” such as “— is essentially—.” Results were that the supposed reference stimuli were most often placed in the second (reference) slot. In Experiment II, the subject placed a stimulus in physical space to represent his feeling of the psychological distance of that stimulus from another spatially fixed stimulus. Results showed that, when supposed reference stimuli were fixed, other stimuli were placed closer to them than vice versa. The results have substantive implications for the understanding of internal structure of categories and methodological implications for the mapping of reference points, quantification of linguistic intuitions, and the assumption of symmetry in psychological distance judgments.


Family Resemblances: Studies in the Internal Structure of Categories

October 1975

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672 Reads

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5,299 Citations

Cognitive Psychology

Six experiments explored the hypothesis that the members of categories which are considered most prototypical are those with most attributes in common with other members of the category and least attributes in common with other categories. In probabilistic terms, the hypothesis is that prototypicality is a function of the total cue validity of the attributes of items. In Experiments 1 and 3, subjects listed attributes for members of semantic categories which had been previously rated for degree of prototypicality. High positive correlations were obtained between those ratings and the extent of distribution of an item's attributes among the other items of the category. In Experiments 2 and 4, subjects listed superordinates of category members and listed attributes of members of contrasting categories. Negative correlations were obtained between prototypicality and superordinates other than the category in question and between prototypicality and an item's possession of attributes possessed by members of contrasting categories. Experiments 5 and 6 used artificial categories and showed that family resemblance within categories and lack of overlap of elements with contrasting categories were correlated with ease of learning, reaction time in identifying an item after learning, and rating of prototypicality of an item. It is argued that family resemblance offers an alternative to criterial features in defining categories.


Cognitive Representation of Semantic Categories

September 1975

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1,424 Reads

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4,077 Citations

Journal of Experimental Psychology General

Conducted 9 experiments with a total of 663 undergraduates using the technique of priming to study the nature of the cognitive representation generated by superordinate semantic category names. In Exp I, norms for the internal structure of 10 categories were collected. In Exps II, III, and IV, internal structure was found to affect the perceptual encoding of physically identical pairs of stimuli, facilitating responses to physically identical good members and hindering responses to identical poor members of a category. Exps V and VI showed that the category name did not generate a physical code (e.g., lines or angles), but rather affected perception of the stimuli at the level of meaning. Exps VII and VIII showed that while the representation of the category name which affected perception contained a depth meaning common to words and pictures which enabled Ss to prepare for either stimulus form within 700 msec, selective reduction of the interval between prime and stimulus below 700 msec revealed differentiation of the coding of meaning in preparation for actual perception. Exp IX suggested that good examples of semantic categories are not physiologically determined, as the effects of the internal structure of semantic categories on priming (unlike the effects for color categories) could be eliminated by long practice. (57 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)


Citations (11)


... A recent development of this general view-the so-called "prototype theory"-maintains that polythetic classes are usually built on a core group of paradigmatic examples which instantiate all the distinctive properties of the class ( [27], [28], [31]). Non-paradigmatic instances are included in the class inasmuch as they possess "a good number" of these properties. ...

Reference:

Categorizing Imaginary Objects
Wittgenstein and Categorization Research in Cognitive Psychology
  • Citing Chapter
  • January 1987

... The theoretical framework for this project grows out of prior work in anthropology and cognitive psychology, which supports the view that key aspects of folk biology are culturally universal and probably domain-specific. As we shall see in our brief review, these include at least ranked taxonomic hierarchies, a privileged (basic) level, and very likely the presumption of underlying causal structure, or psychological essentialism (Atran, 1998;Berlin, 1992;Medin & Ortony, 1989;Rosch, 1975aRosch, , 1975bRosch, , 1975cRosch, , 1975d. [Footnote 1] In short, cultural differences emerge against a backdrop of universal skeletal principles of conceptual development. ...

Reply to Loftus.

Journal of Experimental Psychology General

... Similar to the types of assortment organisation retailers can apply, consumers generally categorise products in two ways: taxonomic versus goal-derived categorisation strategies (Rosch and Lloyd, 1978;Rosch et al., 1976). Taxonomic categorisations are based on similar physical external product attributes (e.g., appearance, taste) and spontaneously accessed (Felcher et al., 2001). ...

Basic Objects in Natural Categories

Cognitive Psychology

... In taxonomic links, the referents of the words belong to the same semantic category (e.g., "animals," as in "dog"-"cow"). Taxonomic relationships are based on shared features, such as being mammals, edibles, or musical instruments (Estes et al., 2011;Rosch, 1975). In combined links (e.g., "dog"-"cat"), both words belong to the same semantic category, and it is also common to find them in the same context (Hutchison et al., 2008). ...

Cognitive Representation of Semantic Categories

Journal of Experimental Psychology General

... Relevant experiments compare recall with and without rehearsal (experimental conditions), while using different items (words, numbers, etc., to be memorized) in each instantiation of the same memory task. Likewise, when studying how hearing a color word can facilitate a same-or-different judgement of color swatches (Rosch, 1975), the main experimental manipulation concerns the typicality of shown color swatches, while the variability between different color words like "blue" or "green", is less important to this research question and so treated as item-level variation. Consequently, a typical psychological experiment is mainly interested in assessing behavior at the level of the experimental condition, because that is where the distinctions relevant to the research question reside. ...

The Nature of Mental Codes for Color Categories

Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance

... Aquí, la capacidad de generalización de los estudios de caso puede aumentar por medio de la selección estratégica del caso (sobre la selección de los casos, véanse Ragin, 1992; BENT FLYVBJERG Rosch, 1978). Cuando el objetivo es lograr la mayor cantidad posible de información sobre un determinado problema o fenómeno, un caso representativo o una muestra aleatoria puede no ser la estrategia más apropiada. ...

Cognition and Categorization
  • Citing Article
  • September 1979

The American Journal of Psychology

... new instances. Extensive research suggests that a greater variability within a category tends to slow down the formation of category representations but enhances generalization (Bowman & Zeithamova, 2020;Hahn et al., 2005;Homa & Cultice, 1984;Homa & Vosburgh, 1976;Posner et al., 1967;Rosch et al., 1976). For instance, as a physician, you may observe that patients with one particular illness often exhibit very similar symptoms, whereas other illnesses manifest a wide range of symptoms. ...

Structural Basis of Typicality Effects

Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance

... Second, as discussed above, we did not control for category size nor theme complexity (i.e., the number of members belonging to each category or theme), which may have consequences for memory search during recall (Landauer & Freedman, 1968;Landauer & Meyer, 1972), as generally speaking, higher-level superordinate concepts in hierarchical structures would imply fewer members and thus smaller search spaces. Moreover, typicality, which is defined as the degree to which a category member is similar to other members within the same category and is dissimilar to members of other categories (Bourne, 1982;Rosch et al., 1976), is likely another important factor affecting episodic retrieval, as they have shown ubiquitous effects in semantic processing (e.g., Battig & Montague, 1969;Casey, 1992;Dunsmoor & Murphy, 2014;Mervis et al., 1976;Murphy & Brownell, 1985;Osherson et al., 1990;Patterson, 2007;Rips et al., 1973;Rips, 1975) and semantic relations underlain by hierarchical structures might affect reconstruction and retrieval for typical category members to greater extents than they did atypical members (Bousfield et al., 1958;Tompary & Thompson-Schill, 2021). Typical category members are also more likely to activate representations of other members of their category (Collins & Loftus, 1975). ...

Relationships among goodness-of-example, category norms, and word frequency
  • Citing Article
  • March 1976

Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society

... This would explain our finding that people are faster to judge whether false statements are lies. Third, people tend to learn typical category members prior to learning atypical ones (Mervis and Pani 1980;Mervis et al. 1975). This would explain the developmental finding that from ages 4 to 7, children base their lie attributions almost exclusively on a statement's truth-value, and that the influence of truth-value continues through adulthood (Strichartz and Burton 1990). ...

Development of the structure of color categories

Developmental Psychology

... These schemas include typical features of discriminatory situations, often called the prototype. Rosch and Mervis (1975) suggest that prototypicality is determined by the number of attributes an element shares with members of a category, in contrast to attributes shared with non-members. This concept aligns with the representativeness heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974), which involves judging an event's likelihood by its resemblance to other events or event categories. ...

Family Resemblances: Studies in the Internal Structure of Categories
  • Citing Article
  • October 1975

Cognitive Psychology