One of the major problems in categorization research is the lack of systema
tic ways of constraining feature weights. We propose one method of operatio
nalizing feature centrality, a causal status hypothesis which states that a
cause feature is judged to be more central than its effect feature in cate
gorization. In Experiment 1, participants learned a novel category with thr
ee characteristic features that were causally related into a single causal
chain and judged the likelihood that new objects belong to the category. Li
kelihood ratings for items missing the most fundamental cause were lower th
an those for items missing the intermediate cause, which in turn were lower
than those for items missing the terminal effect. The causal status effect
was also obtained in goodness-of-exemplar judgments (Experiment 2) and in
free-sorting tasks (Experiment 3), but it was weaker in similarity judgment
s than in categorization judgments (Experiment 4). Experiment 5 shows that
the size of the causal status effect is moderated by plausibility of causal
relations, and Experiment 6 shows that effect features can be useful in re
trieving information about unknown causes. We discuss the scope of the caus
al status effect and its implications for categorization research. (C) 2000
Academic Press.