Evidence for a basic level in event taxonomies

The proposition that event taxonomies have a “basic” level was tested. In the first two tasks of the experiment, taxonomically related event categories were elicited. Nine taxonomies were constructed from subjects’ responses on these tasks. In the third task, subjects listed attributes for events categories from the three levels of abstraction of these taxonomies. A single, common level of abstraction (the basic level) was identified. Subjects listed significantly more attributes for basic categories than for superordinate categories, but not significantly more attributes for the lower, subordinate-level categories. Further analyses showed that basic and subordinate categories elicited a greater number of concrete and event-related features than action and personrelated features, and that superordinate categories showed the opposite trend. These findings are discussed in terms of general principles of categorization applied to events, objects, and scenes, and the particular characteristics of events.     

归类优势与基本水平效应的再探讨

类别特异性分数是预测归类优势的有效指标。实验1考察该分数能否预测基本水平归类优势, 结果：分数较高的表现归类优势。实验2检验有归类优势的下位类别的分数, 结果：它们都有较高分数, 同时发现下位类别的特异性可以影响分数。实验3探讨相同的基本水平与特异性不同的下位组合的归类表现, 结果：下位特异性低就表现基本水平归类优势, 高则相反。据此提出“经验说”, 分数高低与人们在经验中对各层次类别形成的表征特异性程度相关。     

Parts in object concepts: Experiments with artificial categories

Previous research has demonstrated that basic-level categories are associated with the parts of objects. Five experiments were conducted to investigate whether this correlation is caused by a psychological principle that requires basic concepts to have common parts. This hypothesis was investigated in the experiments by separating part and nonpart information in artificial categories. Basic-level structure was measured in two ways: as the level with the highest ratio of within-category similarity to between-category similarity, and as the level with the fastest categorization time in an object-identification task. The results revealed that basic-level structure could be found in categories that did not have parts in common. Furthermore, nonpart information, such as size, color, and texture, could both enhance the basic level and eliminate the basic-level advantage, depending on whether the nonpart information was consistent with or contradicted the part information. These results suggest that, psychologically, parts are neither necessary nor sufficient to form a basic level.     

Conceptual Hierarchies in a Flat Attractor Network: Dynamics of Learning and Computations

The structure of people's conceptual knowledge of concrete nouns has traditionally been viewed as hierarchical ( Collins & Quillian, 1969 ). For example, superordinate concepts ( vegetable ) are assumed to reside at a higher level than basic-level concepts ( carrot ). A feature-based attractor network with a single layer of semantic features developed representations of both basic-level and superordinate concepts. No hierarchical structure was built into the network. In Experiment and Simulation 1, the graded structure of categories (typicality ratings) is accounted for by the flat attractor network. Experiment and Simulation 2 show that, as with basic-level concepts, such a network predicts feature verification latencies for superordinate concepts ( vegetable ). In Experiment and Simulation 3, counterintuitive results regarding the temporal dynamics of similarity in semantic priming are explained by the model. By treating both types of concepts the same in terms of representation, learning, and computations, the model provides new insights into semantic memory.     

Domains and knowledge effects: strategies in object and social classification

This research examined differences in classification strategies in object and social domains. Wattenmaker (1995) found that additive classification rules were more compatible with the social than the object domain. The present experiments examined the generality of these results by using fundamentally different types of social and object categories. A sorting paradigm was used to evaluate the frequency with which subjects used additive strategies. In Experiment 1, the social domain was represented by social events that possess very different properties than core social concepts such as traits or occupations. Even with these types of social materials, however, many more additive strategies and family resemblance sorts occurred with social than object materials. In Experiment 2, the object domain was represented by abstract object categories that were designed to possess properties of core social concepts such as traits. Again, however, more additive strategies and family resemblance sorts occurred with social than object materials. The results indicate that differences in the compatibility between additive strategies and object and social domains are not limited to subsets of categories in these domains but rather extend to many types of object and social categories.     

Visual categorization of social interactions

Prominent theories of action recognition suggest that during the recognition of actions the physical patterns of the action is associated with only one action interpretation (e.g., a person waving his arm is recognized as waving). In contrast to this view, studies examining the visual categorization of objects show that objects are recognized in multiple ways (e.g., a VW Beetle can be recognized as a car or a beetle) and that categorization performance is based on the visual and motor movement similarity between objects. Here, we studied whether we find evidence for multiple levels of categorization for social interactions (physical interactions with another person, e.g., handshakes). To do so, we compared visual categorization of objects and social interactions (Experiments 1 and 2) in a grouping task and assessed the usefulness of motor and visual cues (Experiments 3, 4, and 5) for object and social interaction categorization. Additionally, we measured recognition performance associated with recognizing objects and social interactions at different categorization levels (Experiment 6). We found that basic level object categories were associated with a clear recognition advantage compared to subordinate recognition but basic level social interaction categories provided only a little recognition advantage. Moreover, basic level object categories were more strongly associated with similar visual and motor cues than basic level social interaction categories. The results suggest that cognitive categories underlying the recognition of objects and social interactions are associated with different performances. These results are in line with the idea that the same action can be associated with several action interpretations (e.g., a person waving his arm can be recognized as waving or greeting).     

Object categorization: reversals and explanations of the basic-level advantage

People are generally faster and more accurate to name or categorize objects at the basic level (e.g., dog) relative to more general (animal) or specific (collie) levels, an effect replicated in Experiment 1 for categorization of object pictures. To some, this pattern suggests a dual-process mechanism, in which objects first activate basic-level categories directly and later engage more general or specific categories through the spread of activation in a processing hierarchy. This account is, however, challenged by data from Experiment 2 showing that neuropsychological patients with impairments of conceptual knowledge categorize more accurately at superordinate levels than at the basic level--suggesting that knowledge about an object's general nature does not depend on prior basic-level categorization. The authors consider how a parallel distributed processing theory of conceptual knowledge can reconcile the apparent discrepancy. This theory predicts that if healthy individuals are encouraged to make rapid categorization responses, the usual basic > general advantage should also reverse, a prediction tested and confirmed in Experiment 3. Implications for theories of visual object recognition are discussed.     

Event structure in perception and conception

Events can be understood in terms of their temporal structure. The authors first draw on several bodies of research to construct an analysis of how people use event structure in perception, understanding, planning, and action. Philosophy provides a grounding for the basic units of events and actions. Perceptual psychology provides an analogy to object perception: Like objects, events belong to categories, and, like objects, events have parts. These relationships generate 2 hierarchical organizations for events: taxonomies and partonomies. Event partonomies have been studied by looking at how people segment activity as it happens. Structured representations of events can relate partonomy to goal relationships and causal structure; such representations have been shown to drive narrative comprehension, memory, and planning. Computational models provide insight into how mental representations might be organized and transformed. These different approaches to event structure converge on an explanation of how multiple sources of information interact in event perception and conception.     

Object identification: The mental representation of physical and conceptual attributes

In two experiments, subjects indicated whether two pictures of familiar objects were equivalent. The picture pairs were identical, showed the same object in various perspectives and states, or showed different objects with varying degrees of conceptual relatedness. In Experiment 1, the equivalence criterion for judging the picture pairs was varied between subjects (identity of pictures; conceptual equivalence of objects at subordinate, basic, or superordinate level). The reaction times of the four subject groups suggest that a pictorial stimulus is not always mentally represented in the same way, and that the instructions given determine which attributes of the stimulus are represented. In Experiment 2, the visual similarity of the picture pairs was varied. The results indicate, at least with a basic-level equivalence instruction, that not only perceptual, but also non-perceptual, functional attributes are represented—namely, those that, according to Rosch et al. (1976), are common to the members of a superordinate category.     

Advancing Downward to the Basic Level

In 3 experiments, we studied whether infants and young children understand various basic-level conceptual distinctions in the domains of household artifacts, animals, and vehicles. Using small replicas, we modeled events such as washing dishes in a sink for children 14, 19, and 24 months old, and then gave them an exemplar from the same basic-level concept (another sink) and an exemplar of another concept from the same domain (bathtub). We measured which object they used to imitate the event. Fourteen-month-olds did not differentiate among basic-level categories in any of these domains, for example, washing dishes in both a tub and a sink, and putting both a rabbit and a bird in a nest. By 19 months, inappropriate behavior was greatly reduced for household artifacts and for vehicles, but not for animals. By 24 months, performance was mainly appropriate for all 3 domains. It was also shown that although 14-month-olds are not making many conceptual distinctions at the basic level, they are nevertheless beginning to make some broader conceptual distinctions among artifacts.     

The Effects of Distractor Words on Naming Pictures at the Subordinate Level

Three experiments are reported in which participants are asked to name pictures at the subordinate level (e.g. POODLE) whilst ignoring a distractor word. In Experiment 1, the distractor words included the names of other exemplars from the same basic-level category (e.g. spaniel). Naming latencies were prolonged in this condition, relative to unrelated conditions. In Experiment 2, the distractor words included the correct basic level names (e.g. dog) and the names of related basic level objects (e.g. cat). Subordinate naming latencies were faster in these conditions than in unrelated conditions, suggesting that basic level names can be eliminated as competitors and that it can even be useful to have simultaneous activation of the correct basic level representation when retrieving subordinate names. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that when the names of subordinate objects from a related basic-level category (e.g. koala) are printed on objects, subordinate naming latencies are again delayed when compared with unrelated conditions. The results are discussed with reference to current models of object name retrieval.     

The role of comparison in the extension of novel adjectives

Previous reseach has documented that basic-level object categories provide an initial foundation for mapping adjectives to object properties. Children ranging from 21 months to 3 years can successfully extend a novel adjective (e.g., transparent) to other objects sharing a salient property if the objects are all members of the same basic-level category; if the objects are members of different basic-level categories, they fail to extend adjectives systematically (R. S. Klibanoff & S. R. Waxman, 2000a; S. R. Waxman & D. B. Markow, 1998). The present study proposed that the process of comparison is instrumental in children's ability to move beyond this foundation. To promote comparison, 2 target objects were introduced to 3-year-olds. In Experiment 1, the targets had contrastive properties (e.g., 1 transparent and 1 opaque object); in Experiment 2, the targets had consistent properties (e.g., 2 transparent objects). The results of both experiments illustrate that comparison--a general psychological process--operates in conjunction with naming to support the extension of novel adjectives to properties of objects from diverse basic-level categories.     

Basic-level kinds and object persistence

In three experiments, we explored the basis of adults’ judgments of individual object persistence through transformation. Participants watched scenarios in which an object underwent a transformation into an object belonging to the same or a different basic-level kind. Participants were queried about the object’s persistence through the transformation as an individual (indexed by its proper name) and as a member of the original kind (indexed by its basic-level count noun in Experiments 1 and 2, or by its superordinate-level noun in Experiment 3). In all experiments, participants rated objects that were altered in a way that maintained basic-level kind to be less likely to retain their proper name than those that were altered in a way that changed basic-level kind. These findings suggest that shared basic-level kind membership serves as a dimension of similarity over which objects’ unique individual identities are highlighted. We discuss the implications of the results for existing theoretical accounts of adults’ judgments of individual object persistence.     

Structure of the Indonesian Emotion Lexicon

Based on a prototype approach to emotion concepts, two studies were conducted: (1) to identify the mental state words that Indonesian speakers are most certain name emotions ( perasaan hati ) and (2) to map the hierarchical and family-resemblance structure of the top 124 emotion concepts. As in an earlier study of emotion terms in American English (Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O'Connor, 1987), cluster analysis of sorting data collected in Indonesia revealed five basic-level emotion categories: cinta (love), senang (happiness), marah (anger), kawatir/takut (anxiety/fear), and sedih (sadness). Also in line with the American results, the five basic-level categories formed two large categories at the superordinate level: positive emotions and negative emotions. Each of the five basic-level categories contained several subordinate-level categories, totaling 31 in all. The results suggest that the emotion lexicons, and corresponding conceptualizations of the emotion domain, in Indonesia and the U.S.A. are similar at the superordinate and basic levels but somewhat variable at the subordinate level. This outcome – like other kinds of psychological research on emotions and emotion concepts – suggests that the gross structure of representations of the emotion domain are similar worldwide, perhaps for biological reasons, but that different cultures make different fine-grained distinctions and emphasize different subordinate-level emotion concepts.     

How monkeys see the eyes: cotton-top tamarins’ reaction to changes in visual attention and action

Among social species, the capacity to detect where another individual is looking is adaptive because gaze direction often predicts what an individual is attending to, and thus what its future actions are likely to be. We used an expectancy violation procedure to determine whether cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus oedipus) use the direction of another individual’s gaze to predict future actions. Subjects were familiarized with a sequence in which a human actor turned her attention toward one of two objects sitting on a table and then reached for that object. Following familiarization, subjects saw two test events. In one test event, the actor gazed at the new object and then reached for that object. From a human perspective, this event is considered consistent with the causal relationship between visual attention and subsequent action, that is, grabbing the object attended to. In the second test event, the actor gazed at the old object, but reached for the new object. This event is considered a violation of expectation. When the actor oriented with both her head-and-eyes, subjects looked significantly longer at the second test event in which the actor reached for the object to which she had not previously oriented. However, there was no difference in looking time between test events when the actor used only her eyes to orient. These findings suggest that tamarins are able to use some combination of head orientation and gaze direction, but not gaze direction alone, to predict the actions of a human agent. Received: 17 February 1999 / Accepted after revision: 9 May 1999     

The Effects of Prior Processing Episodes on Basic level Superiority

Four experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of prior processing episodes on people's preference for categorizing objects at the basic level (e.g. dog) relative to their preference for categorizing at the superordinate (e.g. animal) and the subordinate (e.g. Dalmation) levels. The prior processing episode in Experiment 1 was designed to induce subjects to activate representations at the superordinate level, and those in the remaining experiments were designed to induce subjects to differentiate objects at the subordinate level. After the prior processing episodes, subjects performed either a free naming or a picture categorization task that required them to decide whether an illustrated object belonged to a specified category. Results showed that prior processing episodes modestly reduced the superiority of basic level to superordinate level and subordinate level in categorization but not in free naming. The results suggest that the basic-level advantage is subject to the effects of context, but the effects are not as strong as the context effects on other aspects of categorization behaviour (e.g. rating typicality of a category member). Hence, the preference for the basic level is a somewhat more stable, invariant aspect of conceptual representation. Possible determinations of this stability are discussed.     

Preschoolers' extension of familiar adjectives

In two experiments, we examined the role of labels in guiding preschoolers' extension of three types of familiar adjectives: emotional state adjectives, physiological state adjectives, and trait adjectives. On each trial, we labeled a target animal with one of the three different types of adjectives and asked whether these terms could apply to a subordinate-level match, a basic-level match, a superordinate-level match, or an inanimate object. In Experiment 1, participants extended trait adjectives, but not emotional or physiological adjectives, to members of the same basic-level category, regardless of whether an explicit basic-level label was provided for the target animal. Similarly, children in Experiment 2 also extended trait adjectives to the members of the same basic-level category, even when explicit superordinate- and subordinate-level labels were provided for the target animals. Together, these results demonstrate that children appreciate that emotional and physiological adjectives cannot be generalized to the same extent as can trait adjectives, and the results document the privileged status of basic-level categories in preschoolers' extension of trait adjectives.     

Retrospective duration estimation of public events

In three experiments, we investigated subjects' retrospective estimation of the duration of publicly reported events such as, for example, the Falkland's war. In Experiment 1, duration estimates were found to be positively correlated with event knowledge, in keeping with Ornstein's (1969) model of duration estimation. Event duration was, however, generally underestimated, suggesting that the relationship between event knowledge and estimated duration might reflect an increase in estimation accuracy. Other results of Experiment 1 were consistent with this interpretation and suggested that the duration estimates might be largely reconstructed. In Experiment 2, duration estimates of specific events and general categories of events were found to be highly correlated, and the subjects in Experiment 3 indicated that they used knowledge of the general characteristic of different types of events to estimate event duration. Overall, reallife duration estimates appear to be based on a combination of specific event information and knowledge derived about that category of event.     

Six-month-olds’ ability to use linguistic cues when interpreting others’ pointing actions

The present research investigated whether six-month-olds who rarely produce pointing actions can detect the object-directedness and communicative function of others’ pointing actions when linguistic information is provided. In Experiment 1, infants were randomly assigned to either a novel-word or emotional-vocalization condition. They were first familiarized with an event in which an actor uttered either a novel label (novel-word condition) or exclamatory expression (emotional-vocalization condition) and then pointed to one of two objects. Next, the positions of the objects were switched. During test trials, each infant watched the new-referent event where the actor pointed to the object to which the actor had not pointed before or the old-referent event where the actor pointed to the old object in its new location. Infants in the novel-word condition looked reliably longer at the new-referent event than at the old-referent event, suggesting that they encoded the object-directedness of the actor’s point. In contrast, infants in the emotional-vocalization condition showed roughly equal looking times to the two events. To further examine infants’ understanding of the communicative aspect of an actor’s point using a different communicative context, Experiment 2 used an identical procedure to the novel-word condition in Experiment 1, except there was only one object present during the familiarization trials. When the familiarization trials did not include a contrasting object, we found that the communicative intention of the actor’s point could be ambiguous. The infants showed roughly equal looking times during the two test events. The current research suggests that six-month-olds understand the object-directedness and communicative intention of others’ pointing when presented with a label, but not when presented with an emotional non-speech vocalization.