The human brain contains thousands upon thousands of places, objects, things, etc. Each of these are stored and organized within categories that are mind has assumed for them. The category in which they would be found depends on the characteristics they posses. A prototype is an item that best represents a category because it contains all, or the majority of the characteristics. Psychologists believe that people have prototypes stored in their mind for each category and that most prototypes are similar from person to person. If the first item you think of is "apple" when you are asked to name a fruit, than "apple" would be the prototype for the category "fruit". This essay will cover examples of prototypes, family resemblances within these categories and the rules of membership for the category "insect". .
What are the first three words you think of after hearing each of the following categories: "furniture", "weapon", "sport", "insect", and "article of clothing"? After surveying responses, the most common answers were chair, gun, basketball, spider, and t-shirt respectively. Each of these common answers can be considered as the prototype for its respected category. Answers varied among individuals, but the most consistent of the categories was furniture because most individuals said chair first. The category that was the most variable was sport because the individual would most commonly say what sport they preferred in the order they favoured them. One individual answered basketball, volleyball and softball which are three sports they play commonly. The examples of responses found within the categories shared family resemblances. Take for example furniture, most answered furniture found in their dorm room such as a chair or a desk.
The criterion for a category will depend on characteristics or "rules of membership" that it possesses. For the category of "insect", common responses were: bee, wasp, spider, caterpillar, butterfly, and ladybug.
