Salience not status: how category labels influence feature inference

Johansen, Mark K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6429-1976, Savage, Justin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5123-3475, Fouquet, Nathalie and Shanks, David R. 2015. Salience not status: how category labels influence feature inference. Cognitive Science 39 (7) , pp. 1594-1621. 10.1111/cogs.12206

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Abstract

Two main uses of categories are classification and feature inference, and category labels have been widely shown to play a dominant role in feature inference. However, the nature of this influence is unclear, and we evaluate two contrasting hypotheses formalized as mathematical models: the label special-mechanism hypothesis and the label super-salience hypothesis. The special-mechanism hypothesis is that category labels, unlike other features, trigger inference decision making in reference to the category prototypes. This results in a tendency for prototype-compatible inferences because the labels trigger a special mechanism rather than because of any influences they have on similarity evaluation. The super-salience hypothesis assumes that the large label influence is due to their high salience and corresponding impact on similarity without any need for a special mechanism. Application of the two models to a feature inference task based on a family resemblance category structure yields strong support for the label super-salience hypothesis and in particular does not support the need for a special mechanism based on prototypes.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	0364-0213
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Date of Acceptance:	23 July 2014
Last Modified:	17 Nov 2024 00:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/62590

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