{"pk":32025,"title":"Mutability, Conceptual Transformation, and Context","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Features differ in their mutability. For example, a robin could still be a robin even if it lacked a red breast; but it would probably not count as one if it lacked bones. I have hypothesized (Love & Sloman, 1995) that features are immutable to the extent other features depend on them. We can view a feature's mutability as a measure of transformational difficulty. In deriving new concepts, we often transform existing concepts (e.g. we can go from thinking about a robin to thinking about a robin without a red breast). The difficulty of this transformation, as measured by reaction time, increases with the immutability of the feature transformed. Conceptual transformations are strongly affected by context, but in a principled manner, also explained by feature dependency structure. A detailed account of context's effect on mutability is given, as well as corroborating data. I conclude by addressing how mutability-dependency theory can be applied to the study of similarity, categorization, conceptual combination, and metaphor.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"Paper Presentations","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6nv208cv","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Bradley","middle_name":"C.","last_name":"Love","name_suffix":"","institution":"Department of Psychology, Northwestern University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"1996-01-01T21:00:00+03:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/32025/galley/23090/download/"}]}