The Dynamics of Basic Level in the Structures of Human Semantic Memory

Abstract

In the article a new explanation of basic level effect is presented. This explanation is given in terms of activation of particular concept in human semantic memory. In order to check the predictions of the proposed explanation the experiment was done. The main idea of the experiment was to give additional activation to the concepts that were not strongly activated before and to check whether they could show basic level effect in these new conditions. Experimental data could be interpreted as the evidence in support of the suggested explanation of basic level effect.