Familiarity, Priming, and Perception in Similarity Judgments

Abstract

We present a novel way of accounting for similarity judgments. Our approach posits that similarity stems from three main sources—familiarity, priming, and inherent perceptual likeness. Here, we explore each of these constructs and demonstrate their individual and combined effectiveness in explaining similarity judgments. Using these three measures, our account of similarity explains ratings of simple, color‐based perceptual stimuli that display asymmetry effects, as well as more complicated perceptual stimuli with structural properties; more traditional approaches to similarity solve one or the other and have difficulty accounting for both. Overall, our work demonstrates the importance of each of these components of similarity in explaining similarity judgments, both individually and together, and suggests important implications for other similarity approaches.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Oct 20, 2016
Source ID
10.1111/cogs.12418

Entities

People

  • J. Gregory Trafton
  • Laura M Hiatt

Organizations

  • Office of Naval Research
  • Office of the Secretary of Defense
  • United States Naval Research Laboratory

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Brain and Cognitive Science; Experimental Psychology; Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Theoretical Analysis.