Comparison and Contrast in Perceptual Categorization

People categorized pairs of perceptual stimuli that varied in both category membership and pairwise similarity. Experiments 1 and 2 showed categorization of 1 color of a pair to be reliably contrasted from that of the other. This similarity-based contrast effect occurred only when the context stimul...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition memory, and cognition, 2005-11, Vol.31 (6), p.1459-1476
Main Authors: Hampton, James A, Estes, Zachary, Simmons, Claire L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavioral Science Research
Biological and medical sciences
Classification
Classification (Cognitive Process)
Color
Color Contrast
Color Perception
Comparative Analysis
Context Effect
Experiments
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Individual Differences
Perception
Perceptual Stimulation
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Semantic Differential
Semantics
Sensory perception
Serial Ordering
Stimuli
Stimulus Similarity
Vision
Visual Perception
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:People categorized pairs of perceptual stimuli that varied in both category membership and pairwise similarity. Experiments 1 and 2 showed categorization of 1 color of a pair to be reliably contrasted from that of the other. This similarity-based contrast effect occurred only when the context stimulus was relevant for the categorization of the target (Experiment 3). The effect was not simply owing to perceptual color contrast (Experiment 4), and it extended to pictures from common semantic categories (Experiment 5). Results were consistent with a sign-and-magnitude version of N. Stewart and G. D. A. Brown's (2005) similarity-dissimilarity generalized context model, in which categorization is affected by both similarity to and difference from target categories. The data are also modeled with criterion setting theory ( M. Treisman & T. C. Williams, 1984 ), in which the decision criterion is systematically shifted toward the mean of the current stimuli.
ISSN:0278-7393
1939-1285
DOI:10.1037/0278-7393.31.6.1459