It has generally been assumed that production frequency on a feature listing task measures the strength of some relationship between features and concepts. The nature of this relationship, however, has not yet been determined. This study examines the relationship between feature list production frequency and feature relevance, or informativeness. Also tested was the hypothesis, inherent in current concept theories, that different feature types bear different relationships to a given concept, and vary widely in their informativeness. An overall relationship between production frequency and relevance was found, but is attributable to significant correlations present for only a subset of the feature types under consideration. The findings contradict the predictions of two earlier studies; namely, that parts should be the most informative feature type, and that feature type informativeness should depend on the object category. These results are discussed with respect to both feature list studies, and general theories of concepts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.60071 |
| Date | January 1990 |
| Creators | Hynie, Michaela |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001235599, proquestno: AAIMM67803, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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