The specific contribution of object’s origin on artifacts categorization

Gelman and Bloom found that adults and children’s object naming was sensitive to how an object was created (man-made or not), but they did not reveal on which specific level of conceptual system this effect was. Using a free-naming task and a force-choice task, two experiments were conducted to test a hypothesis that this effect was specifically on domain level (“artifact/non-artifact” distinction). In Experiment 1, participants were asked to name shortly-depicted objects, rate their confidence, and report their reasons for each naming response. Results showed that most of the naming responses in “man-made” condition were in artifact domain, and most in “natural” condition were in non-artifact domain, although in both conditions names were very divergent on basic level. In Experiment 2, another group of participants were asked to choose one from two names (one in artifact domain and the other in non-artifact domain) to match the same shortly-depicted objects presented in the first experiment. Results of Experiment 1 on domain level were replicated in Experiment 2. These convergent findings supported the hypothesis that the effect of object’s origin is specifically on domain level of conceptual system of objects. Reasons explicitly reported for naming responses in Experiment 1 suggested that participants might automatically infer objects’ functions in “man-made” condition but not in “natural” condition. Here the function-based hypothesis of artifacts classification is discussed.

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