A Multiple Sorting Procedure for Studying Conceptual Systems

Abstract

Many psychologists have emphasised that the ability to function in the world relates closely to the ability to form categories and to construct systems of classification by which nonidentical stimuli can be treated as equivalent (e.g., Miller 1956; Bruner et aI, 1956; Rosch, 1977). As Smith and Medin (1981) have recently reiterated, if we had to deal with objects, issues, behaviour, or feelings on the basis of each unique example, then the effort involved would make intelligent existence virtually impossible. Thus, an understanding of the categories people use and how they assign concepts to those categories is one of the central clues to the understanding of human behaviour. As consequence, one of the important questions for many investigations is the nature and organisation of the concepts that people have, specific to the issues being explored