The necessity of machine learning and epistemology in the development of categorization theories: A case study in prototype-exemplar debate

Abstract

In the present paper we discuss some aspects of the development of categorization theories concerning cognitive psychology and machine learning. We consider the thirty-year debate between prototype-theory and exemplar-theory in the studies of cognitive psychology regarding the categorization processes. We propose this debate is ill-posed, because it neglects some theoretical and empirical results of machine learning about the bias-variance theorem and the existence of some instance-based classifiers which can embed models sub-suming both prototype and exemplar theories. Moreover this debate lies on a epistemological error of pursuing a, so called, experimentum crucis. Then we present how an interdisciplinary approach, based on synthetic method for cognitive modelling, can be useful to progress both the fields of cognitive psychology and machine learning. © Springer-Verlag 2009.