Modification and Default Inheritance
AbstractModification usually decreases the judged likelihood of typicality statements. People judge “Old coyotes howl” as less likely than just “Coyotes howl”. This paper addresses this so-called modification effect. In order to analyse the effect, we propose an extended modification model based on the selective modification model by Smith et al. (1988) and Barsalou’s (1992) frames. In this model we introduce cross-attributional constraintsModification effect, relevant modification that explain how a change in one dimension leads to an alteration of another attribute, especially if the modifierModification is not typical. Finally, we discuss data from Connolly et al. (2007) and present new experimental evidence from an explorative study.