The salience of encoding attributes in instances of differing levels of category membership was examined using the release from proactive interference (PI) task with college students. In Experiment 1, subjects in the two experimental conditions received recall trials on triads composed of either typical or atypical category instances and were then shifted to the opposite level. In the two control conditions, subjects received only homogeneously typical or atypical triads. It was found that a shift in the typicality dimension produced significant release from PI. A typical-to-atypical shift produced greater release from PI than an atypical-to-typical shift. Differences in retention were observed between levels with higher recall of typical items. In Experiment 2, production frequency was manipulated while typicality was controlled. Shifts in level of production frequency did not produce release from PI; however, high-frequency items were retained significantly better than low-frequency items. The results are discussed in terms of providing converging evidence for Rosch's theory of semantic category structure.

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