Categorization response time with multidimensional stimuli.
Categorization response time (RT) was examined in three separate experiments, in each of which exemplars varied on two physical dimensions. Three different types of stimuli were used: (1) horizontal and vertical line segments of varying length that were joined at an upper left corner, (2) rectangles of varying width and height, and (3) circles or semicircles of varying size with a radial arm of varying orientation. No evidence was found that stimulus familiarity or the category prototypes played any special role in determining categorization RT. Instead, RT decreased with distance from the stimulus to the categorization decision bound.
Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara 93106.
F G
FG
Ashby
G
G
Boynton
W W
WW
Lee
D003657:Decision Making; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D008433:Mathematics; D008568:Memory; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011930:Reaction Time; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological; D014796:Visual Perception