ABSTRACT
We are interested in how people form concepts and how they use these concepts to classify things. Concepts, or subjective categories, are cognitive structures that allow us to treat distinct objects as the same, in some sense. Subjective categories serve several important functions (Smith & Medin, 1981). For example, they provide stability in our understanding of and interaction with objects; they allow us to make efficient use of prior experience, and they reduce memory requirements for storing knowledge. These functions suggest· that the ability to categorize is crucial to successful interaction with the environment. Thus, understanding conceptual structures and the ways we use these structures is vital to a general understanding of both thought and behavior.
