The more links you travel, the longer it takes. That's not right if it's a hierarchy. But, saying no is sometimes fastest of all. A robin is a more typical bird than chicken, but they're still one link from the bird concept, so there should be no difference in time. B. Feature models.
Concepts are clusters of semantic features.
The defining features. A comparison involves a two step process. First, do a quick match on all features. If the amount of match is in the middle, compare only distinctive features. The distinctive comparison involves an extra stage, and should take longer.