Page 252 - Foundations of Cognitive Psychology : Core Readings

258 Eleanor Rosch

Implications for Other Fields
The foregoing theory of categorization and basic objects has implications for
several traditional areas of study in psychology; some of these have been
tested.
Imagery
The fact that basic-level objects were the most inclusive categories at which an
averaged member of the category could be identified suggested that basic objects
might be the most inclusive categories for which it was possible to form a
mental image isomorphic to the appearance of members of the class as a whole.
Experiments using a signal-detection paradigm and a priming paradigm, both
of which have been previously argued to be measures of imagery (Peterson and
Graham 1974; Rosch 1975c), verified that, in so far as it was meaningful to use
the term imagery, basic objects appeared to be the most abstract categories for
which an image could be reasonably representative of the class as a whole.

Perception
From all that has been said of the nature of basic classifications, it would hardly
be reasonable to suppose that in perception of the world, objects were first
categorized either at the most abstract or at the most concrete level possible.
Two separate studies of picture verification (Rosch et al. 1976a; Smith, Balzano,
and Walker 1978) indicate that, in fact, objects may be first seen or recognized
as members of their basic category, and that only with the aid of additional
processing can they be identified as members of their superordinate or subor-
dinate category.

Development
We have argued that classification into categories at the basic level is over-
determined because perception, motor movements, functions, and iconic images
would all lead to the same level of categorization. Thus basic objects should be
the first categorizations of concrete objects made by children. In fact, for our
nine taxonomies, the basic level was the first named. And even when naming
was controlled, pictures of several basic-level objects were sorted into groups
‘‘becausetheywerethe same type of thing’’longbeforesuchatechniqueof
sorting has become general in children.

Language
From all that has been said, we would expect the most useful and, thus, most
used name for an item to be the basic-level name. In fact, we found that adults
almost invariably named pictures of the subordinate items of the nine taxono-
mies at the basic level, although they knew the correct superordinate and sub-
ordinate names for the objects. On a more speculative level, in the evolution
of languages, one would expect names to evolve first for basic-level objects,
spreading both upward and downward as taxonomies increased in depth. Of
great relevance for this hypothesis are Berlin’s (1972) claims for such a pattern
for the evolution of plant names, and our own (Rosch et al. 1976a) and New-
port and Bellugi’s (1978) finding for American Sign Language of the Deaf, that