Rosch's Experiments

Rosch's experiments focused on how people categorize concepts, particularly examining how we form groups of related items, like birds. She found that some examples of a category (like a robin) are seen as "better" prototypes than others (like a penguin) because they share more common features with our mental image of that category. Participants were asked to rate how typical various examples were, revealing that people think about categories in a structured way, often based on shared characteristics. This work has influenced our understanding of cognition, language, and how we process and organize knowledge.