Abstract
Previous research on categorical perception (CP) has focussed primarily on low-level sensory continua. In a series of recent studies, we have found CP effects for ‘higher level’ representations: individual face categories. These findings suggest that CP effects can be acquired through experience, since such effects appear to vary as a direct function of the level of familiarity with individual faces. Thus, CP boundaries need not be innately specified. As such, the phenomenon of CP is much broader than has previously been believed. In this paper, we discuss the implications of these findings and explore various possible mechanisms to account for the phenomena. We then describe a number of further studies designed to distinguish between competing accounts.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bornstein, M.H. & Korda, N.O. (1984). Discrimination and matching within and between hues measured by reaction times: Some implications for categorical perception and levels of information processing. Psychological Research, 46, 207–222.
DeValois, R.L. & DeValois, K.K. (1975). Neural coding of color. In B.C. Carterette and M.P. Friedman (Eds.). Handbook of Perception, 5. New York: Academic Press.
Liberman, A.M., Harris, K.S., Hoffman, H.S., & Griffith, B.C. (1957). The discrimination of speech sounds within and across phoneme boundaries. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54, 358–368.
Eimas, P.D., Miller, J.L., & Jusczyk, P.W. (1987). On infant speech perception and the acquisition of language. In S. Harnad (Ed.). Categorical Perception: The Groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Werker, J.F. & Tees, R.C. (1984). Cross-language speech perception: Evidence for perceptual reorganization during the first year of life. Infant Behavior and Development, 7, 49–63.
Etcoff, N.L. & Magee, J.J. (1992). Categorical perception of facial expressions, Cognition, 44, 227–240.
Morton, J. & Johnson, M.H. (1991). Conspec and conlern: A two-process theory of infant face recognition. Psychological Review, 98(2), 164–181.
Hasselmo, M.E., Rolls, E.E., & Baylis, G.C. (1989). The role of expression and identity in the face-selective responses of neurons in the temporal visual cortex of the monkey, Behavioral Brain Research, 32, 203–218.
Perrett, D.I., Smith, P.A.J., Potter, D.D., Mistlin, A.J., Head, A.S., Milner, A.D., & Jeeves, M.A. (1984). Neurons responsive to faces in the temporal cortex: Studies of functional organization, sensitivity to identity and relation to perception. Human Neurobiology, 3, 197–208.
Diamond, R. & Carey, S. (1977). Developmental changes in the representation of faces. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 23, 1–22.
Carey, S. (1992). Becoming a face expert. Philosophical Transcripts of the Royal Society of London, B, 335, 95–103.
Diamond, R. & Carey, S. (1986). Why faces are and are not special: An effect of expertise. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 155(2), 107–117.
Harnad, S. (1987). Categorical Perception: The Groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ekman, P., Freisen, W.V., & Ellsworth, P. (1982). What are the similarities and differences in facial behavior across cultures? In P. Ekman (Ed.). Emotions in the Human Face. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Beale, J.M. & Keil, F.C. (Under review for publication). Categorical effects in the perception of faces.
Barfield, W. (1986). Expert-novice differences for software: Implications for problem solving and knowledge acquisition. Behaviour and Information Technology, 5, 15–29.
Chi, M.T.H., Feltovich, P.J., & Glaser, R. (1981). Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices. Cognitive Science, 5, 121–152.
Lesgold, A., Rubinson, H., Feltovich, P., Glaser, R., Klopfer, D., & Wang, Y. (1988) Expertise in a complex skill: Diagnosing x-ray pictures. In M.T.H. Chi, R. Glaser, & M.J. Farr (Eds.). The Nature of Expertise. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Sweller, J. Mawer, R.F. & Ward, M.R. (1983). Development of expertise in mathematical problem solving. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 112(4), 639–661.
Tanaka, J.W. & Taylor, M. (1991). Object categories and expertise: Is the basic level in the eye of the beholder? Cognitive Psychology, 23, 457–482.
Myles-Worsley, M., Johnston, W.J., & Simons, M.A., (1988). The influence of expertise on X-ray image processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology, Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 14(3), 553–557.
O’Toole, A.J., Abdi, H., Deffenbacher, K.A., & Valentin, D. (1993). Low-dimensional representation of faces in higher dimensions of the face space. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 10, 1–7.
Turk, M. & Pentland, A. (1991) Eigenfaces for recognition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 3, 71–86.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1995 Springer-Verlag London
About this paper
Cite this paper
Beale, J.M., Keil, F.C. (1995). Categorical Perception as an Acquired Phenomenon: What are the Implications?. In: Smith, L.S., Hancock, P.J.B. (eds) Neural Computation and Psychology. Workshops in Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3579-1_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3579-1_15
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-19948-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-3579-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive