Murphy G L, Brownell H H
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 1985 Jan;11(1):70-84. doi: 10.1037//0278-7393.11.1.70.
When people are asked to decide whether an object is in a given category, they generally respond faster when the category is at the basic level (e.g., car) than when it is at the superordinate level (e.g., vehicle) or the subordinate level (e.g., sedan). Basic categories have shorter and more frequent names, are learned earlier, and are usually more highly differentiated than other categories (they are both specific and distinctive), but it is not clear which of these factors is responsible for the faster response to basic categories. In three experiments with natural language categories, we found evidence that objects can be identified fastest as members of differentiated categories, even when such categories have longer names and are learned later than less differentiated categories. Specifically, we argued that atypical subordinate categories (e.g., racing car) are highly differentiated and should therefore be responded to as fast as basic categories in object recognition. The results supported this view and also ruled out the hypothesis that objects are necessarily identified as members of basic categories before further identification. We discuss the implications of these findings for the use of category names as definite descriptions in discourse.
当人们被要求判断一个物体是否属于某一给定类别时，与处于上位类别（如交通工具）或下位类别（如轿车）相比，当类别处于基本层次（如汽车）时，他们通常反应更快。基本类别有更简短、更常用的名称，习得时间更早，而且通常比其他类别有更高的区分度（它们既具体又独特），但尚不清楚这些因素中哪一个导致了对基本类别的更快反应。在三项针对自然语言类别的实验中，我们发现有证据表明，即使这些类别名称更长且比区分度较低的类别习得时间更晚，物体作为区分度高的类别的成员也能被最快识别。具体而言，我们认为非典型的下位类别（如赛车）有高度的区分度，因此在物体识别中，其反应速度应与基本类别一样快。结果支持了这一观点，也排除了物体在进一步识别之前必然被识别为基本类别成员的假设。我们讨论了这些发现对于在话语中将类别名称用作限定摹状词的意义。
