Undergrad_Book_16-18_Pge_View_Print_no print marks_compressed

Selected Projects 2016-18
Categorical perception (CP) refers to the psychological
phenomenon that occurs when we perceive
a stimulus existing along a continuum as a set of
discrete categories (for a review, see Fugate, 2013).
One way to conceptualize CP is to think of a rainbow
and the colors it produces. While we see a range
of different colors, the physical composition of
the rainbow is in fact a continuous range of visible
wavelengths of light (Goldstone & Hendrickson,
2010). Due to the fact that we are unable to perceive
these wavelengths as they are, we counteract this
by forming discrete categories in order to divide
such objects, or in this case colors, occurring on a
spectrum. From there, we can then differentiate
the colors we see based on how we perceive their
differences (Bornstein, Kessen, & Weiskopf, 1976).
When this happens, the differences of colors in
separate categories become more prominent while
the differences of colors in the same category are
less pronounced (Goldstone & Hendrickson, 2010).
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Anna Sullivan