Similarity, identification, and categorization: comment on Ashby and Lee (1991)

Abstract

Ashby and Lee (1991) tested various models derived from the general recognition theory (GRT; Ashby & Perrin, 1988; Ashby & Townsend, 1986) on their ability to predict and interrelate similarity, categorization, and identification performance. This commentary (a) argues that contrary to Ashby and Lee's suggestion, the likelihood-based GRT cannot generally predict categorization from identification without incorporating selective attention, (b) argues that the categorization rule in the likelihood-based GRT is extremely close in spirit to Nosofsky's (1986) exemplar-based similarity model, (c) reports new model-based analyses that call into question Ashby and Lee's interpretation of their identification-confusion data, (d) raises questions about the identification and similarity models tested by Ashby and Lee, and (e) criticizes Ashby and Lee's methods of fitting and evaluating the various models.