Abstract
Any event in the history of the organism is, in a sense, unique. Consequently, recognition, learning, and judgment presuppose an ability to categorize stimuli and classify situations by similarity. As Quine (1969) puts it: “There is nothing more basic to thought and language than our sense of similarity; our sorting of things into kinds [p. 116].” Indeed, the notion of similarity - that appears under such different names as proximity, resemblance, communality, representativeness, and psychological distance - is fundamental to theories of perception, learning, and judgment. This chapter outlines a new theoretical analysis of similarity and investigates some of its empirical consequences.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Cognition and Categorization |
Publisher | Taylor and Francis |
Pages | 79-98 |
Number of pages | 20 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781003827528 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781032633121 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Jan 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 1978 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.