Similarity, identification, and categorization: comment on Ashby and Lee (1991)
Ashby and Lee (1991) tested various models derived from the general recognition theory (GRT; Ashby & Perrin, 1988; Ashby & Townsend, 1986) on their ability to predict and interrelate similarity, categorization, and identification performance. This commentary (a) argues that contrary to Ashby and Lee's suggestion, the likelihood-based GRT cannot generally predict categorization from identification without incorporating selective attention, (b) argues that the categorization rule in the likelihood-based GRT is extremely close in spirit to Nosofsky's (1986) exemplar-based similarity model, (c) reports new model-based analyses that call into question Ashby and Lee's interpretation of their identification-confusion data, (d) raises questions about the identification and similarity models tested by Ashby and Lee, and (e) criticizes Ashby and Lee's methods of fitting and evaluating the various models.
Nosofsky
R M
RM
Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington 47405.
Smith
J E
JE
D001288:Attention; D003657:Decision Making; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D006801:Humans; D011939:Mental Recall; D008960:Models, Psychological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving