Inheritance of attributes in natural concept conjunctions

Attributes defining pairs of concepts (e.g., SPORTS-GAMES) and their conjunctions (e.g., SPORTS THAT ARE ALSO GAMES) were generated and rated for their importance for defining each concept and conjunction. The results support a model in which a composite prototype for the conjunction is formed as the union of the constituent attribute sets, subject to two constraints: (1) attributes must have a sufficiently high average importance across the two concepts, and (2) necessity and impossibility of attributes is always inherited. In regression analyses, those concepts identified by Hampton (1985b) as being dominant in determining item typicality in conjunctions were again dominant in determining attribute importance and also had greater numbers of important attributes. There was limited evidence of noncompositionality for familiar concept conjunctions. Finally, degree of conflict between the attributes of one concept and those of the other had an independent effect on attribute importance for conjunctions.