Categorizing performance of 12 expert and 12 novice subjects was compared in 3 experiments for feature listing; object naming; and category verification. In all, 15 dog experts and 16 bird experts participated. Implications for research concerning the basic level for categorizing objects are discussed. (SLD)

Seven experiments involving over 700 undergraduate students investigated whether the naturalness of abstract category structures varies with content domain. Results indicate that the structure of knowledge varies with domain and that it would be difficult to formulate general constraints on categorization in terms of abstract structural…

Three experiments involving 128 infants studied whether and how novel words influence object categorization in 12- to 13- month-old infants. Data revealed that a linkage between words and object categories emerged early enough to be a guide in infants' efforts to map word meanings. (SLD)

Theoretical and empirical issues relating to haptic exploration and the representation of common objects during haptic classification were investigated in 3 experiments involving a total of 112 college students. Results are discussed in terms of a computational model of human haptic object classification with implications for dextrous robot…