Visual prototype formation with discontinuous representation of dimensions of variability

Abstract

Experiments (3) with human subjects determined that under some conditions, a prototype was formed of unexperienced values, and, under other conditions, the best recognized stimuli were those incorporating the most frequent values; that the present form of the prototype-distance model could not account for best recognized stimuli being other than the central tendency; and that the attribute-frequency model could account for either finding by incorporating additional assumptions about the specificity with which values on dimensions of variability are encoded.