Chapter 36 - The Time Course of Object, Scene, and Face Categorization

Abstract

We first describe Strategy Length & Internal Practicability (SLIP), a formal model for thinking about categorization, in particular about the time course of categorization. We then discuss an early application of this model to basic-levelness. We then turn to aspects of the time course of categorization that have been neglected in the categorization literature: our limited processing capacities; the necessity of having a flexible categorization apparatus; and the paradox that this inexorably brings about. We propose a twofold resolution of this paradox, attempting, in the process, to bridge work done on categorization in vision, neuropsychology, and physiology.