Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Previous research (Goldstone. 1991) has suggested that concepts differ In their degree of dependency on other concepts. While some concepts' characterizations depend on other sinxjitaneously acquired concepts, other concepts are relatively isolated. The current experiments provide a new measure of a concept's inten-elatedness/isolation. It Is assumed that If the prototype of a concept is classified with greater accuracy than a caricature, then the concept is relatively independent of the influences of other concepts. If a caricature is nrwre easily categorized than the prototype, then the concept is relatively dependent on other concepts. If these assumptions are made, then the cun-ent experiments provide converging support for a interrelated/isolated distinction. Instnjcting subjects to form images of the concepts to be acquired, or infrequently alternating categories during presentation, yields relatively isolated concepts. Instructing subjects to try to discriminate between concepts, or frequently altemating categories, yields relatively interrelated concepts.