PSY 260 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Eleanor Rosch, Semantic Network, Spreading Activation
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The basic level finds a happy medium between these two criteria. Had subjects list common attributes for categories at the superordinate, basic, and subordinate levels. Subjects could think of only a few attributes (0-3) that several superordinate categories had in common. But subjects were able to list a lot of common attributes at the basic level (average of 9) Subjects list more common attributes at the subordinate level, but not many; a small benefit is more than offset by increased attribute overlap. Information is organized into hierarchy of concepts, just as we discussed for categorization. At each category there is a list of associated attributes. Nodes (categories) are connected by links (arrows). The properties attached to the node apply to that node and every linked node under it in the hierarchy. Cognitive economy: properties are only represented once; lower nodes inherit properties from higher nodes.
