Name a bird: what comes to Jev's mind first

Asked to name a member of a category (a bird, a fruit, an emotion, a crime), does the first one that comes to Jev's mind match the one people name first?

result109 questions

Asked to name a member of a category, Jev's first pick is the one people named first most often in 68% of 109 categories (71% of abstract ones like emotions, 66% of concrete ones like birds). Where it differs, it names another ordinary member: flu for an infectious disease (people: cold), living room for a room in a house (people: bedroom), pepper for a spice (people: cumin).

abstract categories71%

concrete categories66%

How to read this: Two bars: the share of categories where Jev's first pick matches people's most common first answer, for abstract categories (emotions, sciences, crimes) and concrete ones (birds, fruits, tools).

109 categories (the screen hid 4), only 20 people each; ties for the top answer count as a match for either; 90% interval [0.606, 0.752]. Jev puts 8% on 'something else' on average, people 9%; 11 categories have a tie at the top.

In short

Asked for the first member of a category that comes to mind, Jev matches Lancaster students' most common first answer in 68% of 109 categories.
Its misses are ordinary alternatives, like flu instead of cold, and for a prime number it said two where most students said one.
Only 20 British students answered each category, so a single category's winner can hinge on one or two people.

What the data shows

say the line bart! simpsons meme: name a spice; Jev: pepper; people: cumin

Jev matches people's first thought in 68% of categories (90% interval 61% to 75%), a little more often for abstract categories (71%) than concrete ones (66%).
Its misses are other ordinary members: flu where the students said cold, living room where they said bedroom, and a few American picks, like gasoline where they said petrol.
Sometimes Jev is the one that's right. Asked for a prime number, the students most often said "one", which isn't prime; Jev said two.
Neither side reaches for "something else" much: Jev 8% of its weight on average, the students 9%.

What it means, and what it doesn't

Jev's sense of "the typical example" mostly matches people's, and where it doesn't, it tends to be a different but just as ordinary pick, now and then an American one where British students gave a British word.

With twenty students per category, a single miss says little; the overall rate and the pattern of the misses are the finding.

Caveats

Twenty British students per category. Each category was answered by only 20 students at Lancaster University, so one or two people can decide the "most common" answer, and 11 categories are tied at the top. Their answers are British: "petrol", "kettle". A few of Jev's misses are simply American (gasoline for petrol).
Picking is easier than naming. People named members freely in 60 seconds; Jev chose from a list of the members people named first, plus "something else". Choosing from a short list is easier than producing an answer from nothing.
Some categories left out. Religion, political systems and religious buildings were left out, and a content filter hid four more categories from the site.

Jev on this experiment

Would a person find it interesting to read?: Yes77%
Does it describe you?: Yes52%
Would you have predicted it?: No51%
How fair is the comparison?: The comparison is shaky
How much should a reader rely on it?: Moderately
Which caveat matters most?: Picking is easier than naming51%

Why ask this

Ask someone to name a bird and they'll almost never say penguin or ostrich. The first member that comes to mind is the center of the category for that person, and psychologists have long used it to map how people organize what they know. It also shapes how people talk: the "default" bird, fruit or job is the one people reach for in examples.

A model reaches for examples constantly. If its defaults differ from people's, its examples will feel slightly off, and its idea of "typical" will quietly differ from yours.

How this was done

The people and the data

The data comes from category production norms by Banks, Wingfield and Connell (2023, Behavior Research Methods). Students at Lancaster University in the UK were given a category and 60 seconds to name as many members as they could. This experiment uses only the member each person named first, 20 people per category, across 113 categories. A content filter hides political and sensitive questions from the site and hid 4 of them; of the 109 left, 64 are concrete, like birds, fruits and tools, and 45 abstract, like emotions, sciences and crimes. With 20 people, a category's "most common" first answer can rest on a handful of votes, and 11 categories are tied at the top.

What Jev was asked

Asked to name a room in a house, which one comes to mind first?
bedroom · hallway · kitchen · reception · front room · living room · something else

The options were the members people named first, plus "something else" for everything else they said. (Thirteen of the twenty students said bedroom.) Each question was asked with the options shuffled, and for "most people".

How it was measured

Whether Jev's top pick is the member people named first most often (a tie at the top counts as a match for either), separately for concrete and abstract categories, with 90% intervals; and how much weight each side puts on "something else".

Where these questions live

109 questions across 1 topic of the map. Each opens on the map with every question in it.

Word

Category Members109

Every question

All 109 questions behind this result, the telling ones first: the examples the analysis points to, then the ones where Jev misses, biggest gap first.

Jev’s own answer

Showing 0 of 109