Specificity: Metrics and Norms

Specificity refers to the semantic precision or degree of extension (inclusiveness) of a conceptual category. Despite being a core theoretical construct in linguistics and cognitive science, specificity has often been overlooked in empirical research due to its conflation with related constructs, abstraction and concreteness, as well as insufficient methodological resources. This chapter provides a theoretical overview of the notion specificity, reviews recent tools and metrics for quantifying it—such as WordNet, Best-Worst Scaling, and the Word Ladders app—and presents experimental evidence on its role in cognitive processing and communication, emphasizing its significance in the study of conceptualization and language.