PSYC 2501 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9.2: Eleanor Rosch, Pomegranate
26 Apr 2018
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9.2 Prototype Approach
o The prototype approach: finding the average case
• Prototype approach to categorization
▪ Membership in a category is determined by comparing the object
to a prototype that represents the category
▪ Prototype
• Typical member of the category
▪ Prototypical objects have high family resemblance
• Rosch & Mervis
• For each of the following common objects, list as many
characteristics and attributes as you can that you feel are
common to these objects: chair, sofa, mirror, telephone
• Assigned many of the same characteristics to chairs
and soda (furniture, cushions, etc.)
• When an items characteristics have a large amount
of overlap with the characteristics of many other
items, this means the family resemblance of those
items is high
• Mirror and telephone have a lot less overlap
▪ Statements about prototypical objects are verified rapidly
• Sentence verification techniques
• Determines how rapidly people could answer questions
about an objects' category
• "an apple is a fruit" vs "a pomegranate is a fruit"
• Subjects respond faster for apple, because it is
more prototypical
• Typicality effect
▪ Prototypical objects are named first
• When asked to list as many objects in a category as possible,
they tend to list most prototypical members first
▪ Prototypical objects are affected by priming
• Subjects heard prime "green"
• Shown pair of colors side by side and indicated whether the
two colors were the same or different
• Three different ways
• Colors were the same and good examples of the category
• Colors were the same but poor examples of the category
(very light green(
• Colors were not the same
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