title: How basic-level objects facilitate question-asking in a categorization task.
abstract: The ability to categorize information is essential to everyday tasks such as identifying the cause of an event given a set of likely explanations or pinpointing the correct from a set of possible diagnoses by sequentially probing questions. In three studies, we investigated how the level of inclusiveness at which objects are presented (basic-level vs. subordinate-level) influences children's (7- and 10-year-olds) and adults' performance in a sequential binary categorization task. Study 1 found a robust facilitating effect of basic-level objects on the ability to ask effective questions in a computerized version of the Twenty Questions game. Study 2 suggested that this facilitating effect might be due to the kinds of object-differentiating features participants generate when provided with basic-level as compared to subordinate-level objects. Study 3 ruled out the alternative hypothesis that basic-level objects facilitate the selection of the most efficient among a given set of features.
authors.affiliation: Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development Berlin, Germany ; Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Azzurra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ruggeri
authors.affiliation: Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development Berlin, Germany ; Department of Anesthesiology and Operative Intensive Care Medicine, Charité University Medicine Berlin Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Feufel
keywords: binary categorization; development; inclusiveness; information search; question-asking