Abstract
Typicality (TYP) ratings given by nonretarded (Uyeda & Mandler, 1980) and retarded (Winters & Hoats, in press) adults were compared with ratings given to eight semantic variables (Gilhooly & Logie, 1980; Toglia & Battig, 1978). The items’ rated familiarity, ambiguity (U), and estimated age of acquisition were reliably related to the retarded group’s TYP ratings, but not to the non-retarded group’s TYP ratings. The items’ categorizability, meaningfulness, and number of attributes were significantly related to TYP ratings by both groups. These variables have been found to be related to retrieval speed, which, in turn, is associated with the organization of categorical information. It was concluded that many of the semantic ratings given by nonretarded adults are reliable predictors of semantic judgments of retarded adults and that variables other than TYP ratings also affect retrieval speed in both populations.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Ashcraft, M. H. (1978). Property norms for typical and atypical items from 17 categories: A description and discussion. Memory & Cognition, 6, 227–232.
Battig, W. F., & Montague, W. E. (1969). Category norms for verbal items in 56 categories: A replication and extension of the Connectecticut category norms. Journal of Experimental Psychology Monographs, 80(3, Pt. 2).
Bjorklund, D. F. (1985). The role of conceptual knowledge in the development of organization in children’s memory. In C. J. Brainerd & M. Pessley (Eds.), Basic processes in memory development: Progress in cognitive development research (pp. 103–142). New York: Springer.
Carroll, J. B., & White, M. N. (1973a). Age-of-acquisition norms for 220 picturable nouns. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 12, 563–576.
Carroll, J. B., & White, M. N. (1973b). Word frequency and age of acquisition as determiners of picture-naming latency. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 25, 85–95.
Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review, 82, 407–428.
Gilhooly, K. J., & Logie, R. H. (1980). Age-of-acquisition, imagery, concreteness, familiarity, and ambiguity measures for 1,944 words. Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation, 12, 395–427.
Glass, A. L., & Meany, P. J. (1978). Evidence for two kinds of low-typical instances in a categorization task. Memory & Cognition, 6, 622–628.
Joelson, J. M., & Herrmann, D. J. (1978). Properties of categories in semantic memory. American Journal of Psychology, 91, 101–114.
Keller, D., & Kellas, G. (1978). Typicality as a dimension of encoding. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 4, 78–85.
Lachman, R. (1973). Uncertainty effects of time to access the internal lexicon. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 99, 199–209.
Lachman, R., Schaffer, J. P., & Hennrikus, D. (1974). Language and cognition: Effects of stimulus codability, name-word frequency, and age of acquisition on lexical access time. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13, 613–625.
Malt, B. C, & Smith, E. E. (1982). The role of familiarity in determining typicality. Memory & Cognition, 10, 69–75.
Mccloskey, M. (1980). The stimulus familiarity problem in semantic memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 485–502.
Mccloskey, M., & Glucksberg, S. (1979). Decision processes in verifying category membership statements: Implications for models of semantic memory. Cognitive Psychology, 11, 1–37.
Mervis, C. B., Catlin, J., & Rosch, E. (1976). Relationships among goodness-of-example, category norms, and word frequency. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 7, 283–284.
Mervis, C. B., & Rosch, E. (1981). Categorization of natural objects. In M. R. Rosenzweig & L. W. Porter (Eds.), Annual Review of Psychology (Vol. 32), pp. 89–115. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.
Nelson, K. E., & Nelson, K. (1978). Cognitive pendulums and their linguistic realization. In K. E. Nelson (Ed.), Children’s language (Vol. 1), pp. 223–285. New York: Gardner Press.
Rosch, E. (1975). Cognitive representation of semantic categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104, 192–233.
Rosch, E., & Mervis, C. B. (1975). Family resemblances: Studies in the internal structure of categories. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 573–605.
Toglia, M. P., & Battig, W. F. (1978). Handbook of semantic word norms. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Uyeda, K. M., & Mandler, G. (1980). Protoypicality norms for 28 semantic categories. Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation, 12, 587–595.
Weil, C. M., Mccauley, C, & Sperber, R. D. (1978). Category structure and semantic priming in retarded adolescents. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 83, 110–115.
Winters, J. J., Jr., & Brzoska, M. A. (1975). Development of lexicon in normal and retarded persons. Psychological Reports, 37, 391–402.
Winters, J. J., Jr., & Burger, A. L. (1980). Retrieval speed, age-of-acquisition estimates, uncertainty, and semantic-dimension comparisons with mentally retarded persons. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 85, 90–93.
Winters, J. J., Jr., & Cundari, L. (1979). Speed of retrieving information from the lexicon of mentally retarded adolescents. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 83, 566–570.
Winters, J. J., Jr., & Hoats, D. L. (in press). Comparison of verbal typicality judgments of retarded and nonretarded persons. American Journal of Mental Deficiency.
Winters, J. J., Jr., Winter, L., & Burger, A. L. (1978). Confidence in age-of-acquisition estimates and its relationship to children’s labeling performance. Bulletin of the Psychononomic Society, 12, 361–364.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The authors are grateful to Herman H. Spitz for his critical reading of the manuscript.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Winters, J.J., Hoats, D.L. & Kahn, H. The relationship between typicality ratings and semantic characteristics as a function of intelligence level. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 23, 195–198 (1985). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329824
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329824