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The Relative Sensitivities of Same-Different and Identification Judgment Models to Perceptual Dependence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Daniel M. Ennis  and
F. Gregory Ashby
Daniel M. Ennis*
Affiliation:
Philip Morris Research Center, Richmond, Virginia Department of Physiology, Medical College of Virginia
F. Gregory Ashby
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara
*
Requests for reprints should be sent to Daniel M. Ennis, Philip Morris Research Center, PO Box 26583, Richmond, VA 23261.
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Abstract

Probabilistic models of same-different and identification judgments are compared (within each paradigm) with regard to their sensitivity to perceptual dependence or the degree to which the underlying psychological dimensions are correlated. Three same-different judgment models are compared. One is a step function or decision bound model and the other two are probabilistic variants of a similarity model proposed by Shepard. Three types of identification models are compared: decision bound models, a probabilistic multidimensional scaling model, and probabilistic models based on the Shepard-Luce choice rule. The decision bound models were found to be most sensitive to perceptual dependence, especially when there is considerable distributional overlap. The same-different model based on the city-block metric and an exponential decay similarity function, and the corresponding identification model were found to be particularly insensitive to perceptual dependence. These results suggest that if a Shepard-type similarity function accurately describes behavior, then under typical experimental conditions it should be difficult to see the effects of perceptual dependence. This result provides strong support for a perceptual independence assumption when using these models. These theoretical results may also play an important role in studying different decision rules employed at different stages of identification training.

Keywords

similarityidentificationprobabilistic modelsperceptual dependence
Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , June 1993 , pp. 257 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

We thank Robert Melara, Jerome Busemeyer and three anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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