Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Adults are sensitive to authenticity (e.g., a historical link to a particular maker) in categorizing artifacts, but it is unclear whether they consider the maker's identity and intent when evaluating these objects. 600 adults saw pairs of manufactured products or works of art (i.e., an original and an identical-looking duplicate) and were asked whether they liked and valued one more than the other. We varied the duplicate's creation history (same maker as the original or different; intended to copy the original or not). Adults liked and valued the original more than the duplicate when the duplicate had a different maker that intended to copy the original, particularly when the duplicate's maker did so without the permission of the original's maker. This originality preference in value judgements was greater for works of art (i.e., inherently unique artifacts) than for manufactured products (i.e., artifacts that may copy a particular design).