Categorical Perception as an Acquired Phenomenon: What are the Implications?

Abstract

Previous research on categorical perception (CP) has focused primarily on low-level sensory continua. In a series of recent studies, we have found CP effects for 'higher level' representations: individual face categories. These findings suggest that CP effects can be acquired through experience, since such effects appear to vary as a direct function of the level of familiarity with individual faces. Thus, CP boundaries need not be innately specified. As such, the phenomenon of CP is much broader than has previously been believed. In this paper, we discuss the implications of these findings and explore various possible mechanisms to account for the phenomenon. We then describe a number of further studies designed to distinguish between competing accounts.