--- abstract: |- Categorization is a very basic cognitive activity. It is involved in any task that calls for differential responding, from operant discrimination to pattern recognition to naming and describing objects and states-of-affairs. Explanations of categorization range from nativist theories denying that any nontrivial categories are acquired by learning to inductivist theories claiming that most categories are learned. "Categorical perception" (CP) is the name given to a suggestive perceptual phenomenon that may serve as a useful model for categorization in general: For certain perceptual categories, within-category differences look much smaller than between-category differences even when they are of the same size physically. For example, in color perception, differences between reds and differences between yellows look much smaller than equal-sized differences that cross the red/yellow boundary; the same is true of the phoneme categories /ba/ and /da/. Indeed, the effect of the category boundary is not merely quantitative, but qualitative. altloc: - http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad87.cpreview.html chapter: 1 commentary: ~ commref: ~ confdates: ~ conference: ~ confloc: ~ contact_email: ~ creators_id: [] creators_name: - family: Harnad given: Stevan honourific: '' lineage: '' date: 1987 date_type: published datestamp: 2001-06-18 department: ~ dir: disk0/00/00/15/71 edit_lock_since: ~ edit_lock_until: ~ edit_lock_user: ~ editors_id: [] editors_name: - family: Harnad given: Stevan honourific: '' lineage: '' eprint_status: archive eprintid: 1571 fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/text_html.png;/1571/1/harnad87.cpreview.html full_text_status: public importid: ~ institution: ~ isbn: ~ ispublished: pub issn: ~ item_issues_comment: [] item_issues_count: 0 item_issues_description: [] item_issues_id: [] item_issues_reported_by: [] item_issues_resolved_by: [] item_issues_status: [] item_issues_timestamp: [] item_issues_type: [] keywords: 'categorical perception, psychophysics, adaptation level theory, event-related potentials, color perception, phoneme perception, perceptual learning, similarity judgment' lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:40 latitude: ~ longitude: ~ metadata_visibility: show note: ~ number: ~ pagerange: 1-52 pubdom: FALSE publication: 'Categorical Perception: The Groundwork of Cognition' publisher: Cambridge University Press refereed: FALSE referencetext: | Bialystok, E. & Olson, D. R. (1987) Spatial Categories: The Perception and Conceptualization of Spatial Relations. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press Bornstein, M. H. (1987) Perceptual Categories in Vision and Audition. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Diehl, R. L. & Kluender, K. R. (1987) On the Categorization of Speech Sounds. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Ehret, G. (1987) Categorical Perception of Speech Signals: Facts and Hypotheses from Animal Studies. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press 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 Univerity Press Keil, F. C. & Kelley, M. H. (1987) Developmental Changes in Category Structure. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Kuhl, P. K. (1987) The Special-Mechanisms Debate in Speech Perception: Nonhuman Species and Nonspeech Signals. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Macmillan, N. A. (1987) Beyond the Categorical/Continuous Distinction: A Psychophysical Approach to Processing Modes. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Massaro, D. W. (1987) Categorical Partitioning: A Fuzzy-Logical Model of Categorization Behavior. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Medin, D. L. & Barsalou, L.W. (1987) Categorization Processes in Category Structure. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Molfese, D. L. (1987) Electrophysiological Indices of Categorical Perception. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Pastore, R. E. (1987) Categorical Percption: Some Psychophysical Models. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press Regan, D. M. (1987) Evoked Potentials and Colour-Defined Categories. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Remez, R. E. (1987) Neural Models of Speech Perception: A Case History. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Repp, B. H. & Liberman, A. H. (1987) Phonetic Boundaries are Flexible. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Rosen, S. & Howell, P. (1987) Auditory, Articulatory and Learning Explanations of Categorical Perception in Speech. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Snowdon, C. T. (1987) A Naturalistic View of Categorical Perception. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press Wilson, M. (1987) Brain Mechanisms in Categorical Perception. In S. Harnad (Ed.) Categorical perception: The groundwork of Cognition. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press relation_type: [] relation_uri: [] reportno: ~ rev_number: 8 series: ~ source: ~ status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:38:44 subjects: - percep-cog-psy - psy-phys succeeds: ~ suggestions: ~ sword_depositor: ~ sword_slug: ~ thesistype: ~ title: 'Psychophysical and cognitive aspects of categorical perception: A critical overview' type: bookchapter userid: 63 volume: ~