Barsalou (1985) argued that exemplars that serve category goals become more typical category members. Although this claim has received support, we investigated (a) whether categories have a single ideal, as negatively valenced categories (e.g., cigarette) often have conflicting goals, and (b) whether ideal items are in fact typical, as they often…

Research has documented two effects of interfeature causal knowledge on classification. A "causal status effect" occurs when features that are causes are more important to category membership than their effects. A "coherence effect" occurs when combinations of features that are consistent with causal laws provide additional…