typicality effect

the finding that people are quicker to make category judgments about typical members of a category than they are to make such judgments about atypical members. For example, they are more quickly able to judge that a dog is a mammal than they are able to judge that a whale is a mammal.

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Psychology term of the day

October 9th 2024

Schröder staircase

an ambiguous figure of a staircase, which can be perceived as seen either from above or from underneath the stairs, depending on the perspective of the observer. It is often confused with the staircase illusion. [Heinrich Schröder (1810–1885), German bacteriologist and educator]