Category Labels Highlight Feature Interrelatedness in Similarity Judgment

When objects carry the same or different label(s), our perception of the similarity of the objects changes. How does this happen? In two experiments, pictures of animal tissues were presented with fictitious labels and participants judged the similarity of the pictures. The perceived similarity increased when the fictitious labels highlight the interrelatedness of features; this effect of labels was absent when the interrelatedness was not obvious. The results demonstrated that category labels clarify interrelatedness of features, and modify our perception of similarity.