Taylor Kirsten I, Salamoura Angeliki, Randall Billi, Moss Helen, Tyler Lorraine K
Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2008 May;34(3):719-25. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.34.3.719.
The conceptual structure account of semantic memory (CSA; L. K. Tyler & H. E. Moss, 2001) claims that feature correlation (the degree to which features co-occur) and feature distinctiveness (the number of concepts in which a feature occurs) interact with domains of knowledge (e.g., living vs. nonliving) such that the distinctive features of nonliving things are more highly correlated than the distinctive features of living things. Evidence for (B. Randall, H. E. Moss, J. M. Rodd, M. Greer, & L. K. Tyler, 2004) and against this claim (G. S. Cree, C. McNorgan, & K. McRae, 2006) has been reported. This comment outlines the CSA, discusses Cree et al.'s (2006) critiques of the Randall et al. (2004) experiments and the CSA, and reports new analyses of property norm and behavioral data, which replicate the results reported by Randall et al. (2004).
