[The effect of similarity between the study and the prototypical exemplars on the recognition of prototypical...

To test whether the similarity between the prototypical and the study exemplars affects the recognition of prototypical exemplars, 60 undergraduates were presented two, four, or six sample exemplars simultaneously and then asked to judge whether average prototypical (Pa) or the modal prototypical (Pm) exemplars, was more similar to, or went together with them. In the narrow category structure which are composed of exemplars with less variable values, the Pa exemplars were selected as frequently as the Pm ones. In the wide category structure which are composed of the exemplars with more variable values, however, the Pm exemplars were selected more frequently than the Pa ones. Previous finding that Pm exemplars were more abstracted than Pa exemplars in the wide structure might be due to the similarity between prototypical exemplars and sample exemplars.