Subcategorisation, not uncertainty, drives the modification effect

Abstract

The modification effect refers to the finding that likelihood ratings for statements using modified concepts (e.g., baby ducks have webbed feet) are lower than for statements using the unmodified head concept (e.g., ducks have webbed feet). One explanation for this effect is that people are reluctant to attribute properties to a combined concept due to general uncertainty about the combined concept. Across four experiments, we examined three sources of uncertainty (i.e., modifier, relational structure and category membership) and found that reducing uncertainty does not remove the modification effect. In addition, the results demonstrate that the modification effect is not unique to decisions concerning combined concepts, but extends to single-name subcategories. The results of these experiments indicate that the modification effect results from inferences based on meta-knowledge about category–subcategory relations.

Keywords:

• conceptual combination
• concepts
• compositionality
• inference
• category inference
• property induction
• category-based induction

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This work was supported by NSERC under grant [203054] to the first author and grant [250028] to the second author.