In this paper we present the results of two experiments. The first is on the categorization of texture words in the English language. The goal was to determine whether there is a common basis for subjects' groupings of words related to visual texture, and if so, to identify the underlying dimensions used to categorize those words.Eleven major clusters were identified through hierarchical cluster analysis, ranging from “random” to “repetitive”. These clusters remained intact in a multidimensional scaling solution. The stress for (...) a three‐dimensional solution obtained through multidimensional scaling was 0.18, meaning that 82% of the variance in the data is explained through the use of three dimensions. It appears that the major dimensions of texture descriptors are repetitive versus nonrepetitive; linearly oriented versus circularly oriented; and simple versus complex.In the second experiment we measured the strength of association between texture words and texture images. The goal was to determine whether there is any systematic correspondence between the domains of texture words and texture images. Pearson's coefficient of contingency, a measure of the strength of association, was found to be 0.63 for words corresponding to given images and 0.56 for images corresponding to given words. Thus the texture categories in the verbal space and those in the visual space are strongly tied.In sum, our two experiments show (a) that despite the tremendous variety in the words we have to describe textures, there is an underlying structure to the lexical space which can be derived from the experimental data; and (b) that the association between a category of words and a category of images was strongest when both categories represent the same underlying property. This suggests that subjects' organizations of texture terms are systematically tied to their organization of texture images. (shrink)

Perceptual similarity is one of the most fiercely debated topics in the philosophy and psychology of perception. The documented history of the issue spans all the way from Plato – who regarded similarity as a key factor for human perceptual experience and cognition – through to contemporary psychologists – who have tried to determine whether, and if so, how similarity relationships can be established between stimuli both within and across the senses. Recent research on cross-sensory associations, otherwise known as crossmodal (...) correspondences – that is, the existence of observable consensual associations, or mappings, between stimuli across different senses – represents an especially interesting field in which to study perceptual similarity. In fact, most accounts of crossmodal association that have been put forward in the literature to date evoke perceptual similarity as a key explanatory factor mediating the underlying association. At the same time, however, these various accounts raise several important theoretical questions concerning the very nature of similarity, with, for example, the sensory, affective, or cognitive underpinnings of similarity judgements remaining unclear. We attempt to shed light on these questions by examining the various accounts of crossmodal associations that have been put forward in the literature. Our suggestion is that perceptual similarity varies from being phenomenologically-based to conceptually-based. In particular, we propose that the nature of the associations underlying similarity judgements – whether these associations are phenomenologically-, structurally-, emotionally-, or conceptually-based – may be represented in a two-dimensional space with associative strength on one axis, and cognitive penetrability on the other. (shrink)

According to Goodman (1972), two things are similar only if they possess relevant common properties. The relevance of properties, however, can vary with the context and with the goals of the person making the comparison. As a result, similarity is a highly unstable relation, and therefore difficult to use as a base from which to explain other processes, such as analogy, induction, categorization, and metaphor. A recent attempt by Gentner and her colleagues to explain the operations of the comparison process (...) in analogy may run across some of these difficulties. In particular, her structure-mapping theory (Gentner, 1983, 1989; Gentner & Markman, 1997) does not explain how the relevant features are accessed during the early stages of the comparison process. Moreover, progress on this problem will not be made until we have a solution to a more general problem--the problem of explaining how people manage to bring relevant information to bear in the processing of new information. (shrink)

Analogy researchers do not often examine gesture, and gesture researchers do not often borrow ideas from the study of analogy. One borrowable idea from the world of analogy is the importance of distinguishing between attributes and relations. Gentner observed that some metaphors highlight attributes and others highlight relations, and called the latter analogies. Mirroring this logic, we observe that some metaphoric gestures represent attributes and others represent relations, and propose to call the latter analogical gestures. We provide examples of such (...) analogical gestures and show how they relate to the categories of iconic and metaphoric gestures described previously. Analogical gestures represent different types of relations and different degrees of relational complexity, and sometimes cohere into larger analogical models. Treating analogical gestures as a distinct phenomenon prompts new questions and predictions, and illustrates one way that the study of gesture and the study of analogy can be mutually informative. (shrink)

This paper draws on the notion of “objects of research” in psychology as clusters of phenomena (Feest in Philos Sci 84:1165–1176, 2017) to analyze the productive role of folk psychological concepts—and the operational definitions that arise from them—in the development of concepts in scientific psychology. Using the case study of similarity, I discuss the role of the folk psychological concept in the regimentation of different measures of similarity judgments. I propose that by giving rise to operational definitions that lead to (...) experimental dissociation on the one hand, and by providing the concept with unity on the other hand, the folk psychological concept generates a productive tension that facilitates empirical and theoretical development of the scientific concept. (shrink)

Just as Boolean rules define Boolean categories, the Boolean operators define higher-order Boolean categories referred to as modal categories. We examine the similarity order between these categories and the standard category of logical identity (i.e. the modal category defined by the biconditional or equivalence operator). Our goal is 4-fold: first, to introduce a similarity measure for determining this similarity order; second, to show that such a measure is a good predictor of the similarity assessment behaviour observed in our experiment involving (...) key modal categories; third, to argue that as far as the modal categories are concerned, configural similarity assessment may be componential or analytical in nature; and lastly, to draw attention to the intimate interplay that may exist between deductive judgments, similarity assessment and categorisation. (shrink)