On Categories, Pictures, and the Goals of Comparative Psychology

by Olga F. Lazareva,
Drake University

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Abstract

The focus article concluded that comparative research in visual categorization suffers from several shortcomings, including unsupported positive assumptions about picture-object correspondence and use of artificially stimuli that bear a dubious relationship to nature. The author commented on these conclusions and argued that research on basic mechanisms of categorization also requires highly controlled and standardized stimuli and that these are as important for our understanding of how animals behave in the natural world as studies employing more naturalistic stimuli and settings.

Keywords: categorization, pigeons, visual discrimination, photographs

Lazareva, O. F. (2010). On categories, pictures, and the goals of comparative psychology. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 5, 139-142. Retrieved from http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/ doi:10.3819/ccbr.2010.50009