Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, 2029 Sheridan Road - 102 Swift Hall, Evanston, IL 60208-2710, United States.
Cognition. 2011 Mar;118(3):359-76. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2010.10.009. Epub 2010 Dec 13.
Most theories of categorization posit feature-based representations. Markman and Stilwell (2001) argued that many natural categories name roles in relational systems and therefore they are role-governed categories. There is little extant empirical evidence to support the existence of role-governed categories. Three experiments examine predictions for ways that role-governed categories should differ from feature-based categories. Experiment 1 shows that our knowledge of role-governed categories, in contrast to feature-based categories, is largely about properties extrinsic to category members. Experiment 2 shows that role-governed categories have more prominent ideals than feature-based categories. Experiment 3 demonstrates that novel role-governed categories are licensed by the instantiation of novel relational structures. We then discuss broader implications for the study of categories and concepts.
大多数范畴化理论都假定基于特征的表示。马克曼和斯蒂尔威尔（2001）认为，许多自然范畴命名的是关系系统中的角色，因此它们是受角色支配的范畴。目前很少有实证证据支持受角色支配的范畴的存在。三项实验检验了角色支配的范畴应该与基于特征的范畴有何不同的预测。实验 1 表明，与基于特征的范畴相比，我们对受角色支配的范畴的知识主要是关于范畴成员之外的属性。实验 2 表明，受角色支配的范畴比基于特征的范畴更具有理想特征。实验 3 证明，新颖的受角色支配的范畴是通过新颖的关系结构的实例化来授权的。然后，我们讨论了对范畴和概念研究的更广泛影响。
