Historically, accounts of object representation and perceived similarity have focused on intrinsic features. Although more recent accounts have explored how objects, scenes, and situations containing common relational structures come to be perceived as similar, less is known about how the perceived similarity of parts or objects embedded within…

Four experiments involving 159 undergraduates examined beliefs about the nature of water, testing a strong version of psychological essentialism that takes belief in an essence to be the primary determinant of category membership and word use. Results suggest that essentialist beliefs may not fully explain category membership judgments. (SLD)

Two studies involving 195 undergraduates investigated memory errors occurring when the context standard used in judging target behaviors differs from the category norm standard available when behaviors are recalled. Results support a "natural" tendency to use the current categorical meaning of a judgment to reconstruct the referent of…