Does category size affect categorization time?

Abstract

Landauer and Freedman (1968) found that it takes longer to categorize object names (e.g., collie or tulip) into larger categories (e.g., animal) than into smaller categories (e.g., dog). They attributed this effect to category size. But we suspected the effect was caused by the fact that their different-size categories were always nested. Two experiments, one a partial replication of their first experiment, were conducted to disentangle these two possible explanations. Several factors were found to affect categorization time: nesting, whether or not subcategories were utilized by Ss in the categorization task, and semantic relatedness or confusability. There was no evidence that larger categories, in and of themselves, required longer categorization times than smaller categories.