title: Basic-level kinds and object persistence.
abstract: In three experiments, we explored the basis of adults' judgments of individual object persistence through transformation. Participants watched scenarios in which an object underwent a transformation into an object belonging to the same or a different basic-level kind. Participants were queried about the object's persistence through the transformation as an individual (indexed by its proper name) and as a member of the original kind (indexed by its basic-level count noun in Experiments 1 and 2, or by its superordinate-level noun in Experiment 3). In all experiments, participants rated objects that were altered in a way that maintained basic-level kind to be less likely to retain their proper name than those that were altered in a way that changed basic-level kind. These findings suggest that shared basic-level kind membership serves as a dimension of similarity over which objects' unique individual identities are highlighted. We discuss the implications of the results for existing theoretical accounts of adults' judgments of individual object persistence.
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. mijke@psych.ubc.ca
authors.forename: Mijke
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rhemtulla
authors.forename: D Geoffrey
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Hall
mesh_terms: D001245:Association Learning; D003210:Concept Formation; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010469:Perceptual Distortion; D012660:Semantics