concrete categories

When targeting category generation, there are two types of categories; concrete and abstract.  A concrete category could be described as being "black and white", meaning it either is in the category, or it is not in the category (e.g., car types = Toyota).  An abstract category is more ambiguous, it may be in the category, but it may not (e.g., things that are blue = a shirt.  It may be blue, but it might be red).  Concrete vs. abstract is different when sorting items, so keep that in mind.

I frequently use the following concrete categories when working with adults:
foods- hamburger, hot dog, apple....
drinks- milk, apple juice, grape juice...
animals- cow, horse, pig...
items in a kitchen- sink, knife, cups...
items in a garage- car, rake, boxes...

The Ross Information Processing Assessment (Ross-Swain, 1996) requires the client to generate 15 items within 1 minute. The above categories allow for 15+ items per task.