Similarity and dissimilarity as evidence in perceptual categorization

In exemplar models the similarities between a new stimulus and each category exemplar constitute positive evidence for category membership. In contrast, other models assume that, if the new stimulus is sufficiently dissimilar to a category member, then that dissimilarity constitutes evidence against category membership. We propose a new similarity–dissimilarity exemplar model that provides a framework for integrating these two types of accounts. The evidence for a category is assumed to be the summed similarity to members of that category plus the summed dissimilarity to members of competing categories. The similarity–dissimilarity exemplar model is shown to mimic the standard exemplar model very closely in the unidimensional domain.