Categorical Perception
The Groundwork of Cognition

From a focus on the most thoroughly investigated case of categorical perception - speech perception - the book proceeds to an integrative view of categorization in general.

Stevan R. Harnad (Edited by)

9780521267588, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 July 1987

612 pages
24.2 x 15.2 x 3.3 cm, 1.018 kg

"...provides a thorough survey of recent developments in the study of categorization and draws out some of the important consequences of this work to other studies of cognition." Philosophical Psychology

How do we sort the objects, people, events and ideas in the world into their proper categories? What transforms the 'blooming, buzzing confusion' that enters our eyes and ears when we are born into the orderly world which we eventually experience and interact with? This most basic of questions about human (and animal) perception and cognition is the subject of Categorical Perception, an exhaustive survey and integration of a diverse array of findings. Categorical Perception brings together all the known examples of categorical perception, from research on humans and animals, infants and adults, in all the sense modalities: hearing, seeing and touch. The perceptual findings are interpreted in terms of the available cognitive and neuroscientific theories of how categorical perception is accomplished by the brain: is it inborn? is it learned? what is it that the mind does to the incoming continuous information to sort it into the discrete categories we can see, manipulate, name and describe? Work on elementary perceptual and psychophysical categories (colours, sounds) is then compared with work on higher-order categories: objects, patterns, abstract concepts. From a focus on the most thoroughly investigated case of categorical perception - speech perception - the book proceeds to an integrative view of categorization in general.

List of contributors
Preface
Introduction: psychophysical and cognitive aspects of categorical perception: a critical overview S. Harnad
Part I. Psychophysical Foundations of Categorical Perception: 1. Categoric perception: some psychophysical models R. E. Pastore
2. Beyond the categorical/continuous distinction: a psychophysical approach to processing modes N. A. MacMillan
Part II. Categorical Perception of Speech: 3. Phonetic category boundaries are flexible B. H. Repp and A. M. Liberman
4. Auditory, articulatory, and learning explanations of categorical perception in speech S. Rosen and P. Howell
5. On infant speech perception and the acquisition of language P. D. Eimas, J. L. Miller and P. W. Jusczyk
Part III. Models for Speech Categorical Perception: 6. Neural models of speech perception: a case history R. E. Remez
7. On the categorization of speech sounds R. L. Diehl and K. R. Kluender
8. Categorical partition: a fuzzy-logical model of categorization behaviour D. W. Massaro
Part IV. Categorical Perception in Other Modalities and Other Species: 9. Perceptual categories in vision and audition M. H. Bornstein
10. Categorical perception of sound signals: facts and hypotheses from animal studies G. Ehret
11. A naturalistic view of categorical perception C. T. Snowden
12. The special-mechanisms debate in speech research: categorization tests on animals and infants P. K. Kuhl
13. Brain mechanisms in categorical perception M. Wilson
Part V. Psychophysiological Indices of Categorical Perception: 14. Electrophysiological indices of categorical perception for speech D. L. Molfese
15. Evoked potentials and color-defined categories D. Regan
Part VI. Higher-order Categories: 16. Categorization processes and categorical perception D. L. Medin and L. W. Barsalou
17. Developmental changes in category structure F. C. Keil and M. H. Kelly
18. Spatial categories: the perception and conceptualization of spatial relations E. Bialystok and D. R. Olson
Part VII. Cognitive Foundations: 19. Category induction and representation S. Harnad
Author index
Subject index.

Subject Areas: Perception [JMRP]