Categorical perception of familiar objects.

Full Abstract

We report three experiments where the categorical perception of familiar, three-dimensional objects was investigated. A continuum of shape change between 15 pairs of objects was created and the images along the continuum were used as stimuli. In Experiment 1 participants were first required to discriminate pairs of images of objects that lay along the shape continuum. Then participants were asked to classify each morph-image into one of two pre-specified classes. We found evidence for categorical perception in some but not all of our object pairs. In Experiment 2 we varied the viewpoint of the objects in the discrimination task and found that effects of categorical perception generalized across changes in view. In Experiment 3 similarity ratings for each object pair were collected. These similarity scores correlated with the degree of perceptual categorization found for the object pairs. Our findings suggest that some familiar objects are perceived categorically and that categorical perception is closely tied to inter-object perceptual similarity.

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Author information

Author/s: Newell, Fiona N (FN); Bülthoff, Heinrich H (HH);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Aras an Phairsaigh, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland. fiona.newell(-atsign-)tcd.ie

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Cognition (Cognition), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Sep; vol 85 (issue 2) : pp 113-43

Dates: Created 2002/07/19; Completed 2002/11/12; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12127696, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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