The comparative psychophysics of complex shape perception.

Full Abstract

The authors compared the complex shape perception of humans and monkeys. Members of both species participated in a Same-Different paradigm in which they judged the similarity of shape pairs that could be variations of the same underlying prototype. For both species, similarity gradients were found to be steep going out from the transformational center of psychological space. In contrast, similarity gradients were found to be flat going from the periphery in toward the center of psychological space. These results show that there are important common principles in the shape-perception and shape-comparison processes of humans and monkeys. The same general organization of psychological space is obtained. The same quantifiable metric of psychological distance is applied. Established methods for creating controlled shape variation have the same effect on both species' similarity judgments. The member of the to-be-judged pair of shapes that is peripheral in psychological space controls the strength of the perceived similarity of the pair. The results have broader implications for the comparative study of perception and categorization.

Author information

Author/s: Smith, J David (JD); Redford, Joshua S (JS); Haas, Sarah M (SM);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA. psysmith(-atsign-)buffalo.edu

Grants: HD-38051 (Agency:NICHD NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Animal cognition (Anim Cogn), published in Germany. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Nov; vol 12 (issue 6) : pp 809-21

Dates: Created 2009/10/16; Completed 2009/10/29;

PMID: 19495817, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 10/29/2009, IMS Date: )

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