Abstract
Two experiments are described which were designed to test the assumption that names of geometric shapes may be represented in memory as lists of the physical properties of the shapes they designate. In Experiment I subjects reported “same”−“different” judgements in response to pairs of concentric shapes, or a shape name printed inside a shape. Visual confusions occurred in both tasks, suggesting that names are converted to descriptions of shape properties prior to comparison. In Experiment II pairs of shape names were classified by reference to a rule which was stated in terms of physical features of their referents. This task also provided evidence that classification times were sensitive to variations in the similarity of the shapes designated by the names.
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