Cognitive psychology has uncovered two effects that have altered traditional views of human classification. Basic level effects suggest that humans prefer concepts at a particular level of generality, while typicality effects indicate that some instances of a class are more readily recognized as such than others. This paper describes a model of memory that accounts for basic level effects, typicality effects, and interactions between them. More generally, computer experiments lay the groundwork for a formal unification of basic level and typicality phenomena.
['Douglas H. Fisher']
A computational account of basic level and typicality effects