Naturally-formed objects categorized as artifacts: Effect of objects' functional depictions

Past research has identified a variety of factors that influence cognitive processing of artifact concepts, but few experiments tested possible interactive patterns among these factors. Using a natural language depiction based free naming task, we explored how an object's function and its history (information about how an object was formed by natural force) interact to affect categorization judgment in a 2x2 between- subjects experiment (N = 169). The study had two key findings: (i) Without presenting an object's function, presenting the history of its natural formation increased subjects' tendency to name the object under the "natural" domain and decreased their tendency to name it under the "artifact" domain; (ii) once we presented the depiction of an object's function, the effect of history presentation on categorization disappeared: Subjects in both conditions strongly preferred naming objects as artifacts. In summary, presenting depiction of an object's function inhibited the effect of history on object categorization. Current findings suggest that an object's function plays a fundamental role in the cognitive processing of artifact concepts