Selective attention and the formation of linear decision boundaries: comment on McKinley and Nosofsky (1996).
S. C. McKinley and R. M. Nosofsky (1996) compared a linear decision-bound model with the generalized context model (GCM) in their ability to account for categorization data from experiments that used integral- or separable-dimension stimuli and required selective attention or attention to both dimensions. McKinley and Nosofsky (1996) found support for the GCM and concluded that decision-bound theory needs to incorporate assumptions about selective attention. In this commentary it is argued that (a) unlike the GCM, decision-bound theory provides a framework for independently investigating perceptual and decisional forms of selective attention; (b) the effect of stimulus integrality on the form of the optimal decision bound is misinterpreted; (c) averaged data is biased against decision-bound theory and toward the GCM; (d) many a priori predictions of the GCM are violated empirically; and (e) exemplar theory has lost much of its initial theoretical structure.
Maddox
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Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, USA. maddox@psy.utexas.edu
Ashby
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D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*