Selective Attention and the Formation of Linear Decision Boundaries

Classification experiments were designed to compare the predictions of a linear decision bound model with those of an exemplar-similarity model incorporating an explicit selective attention mechanism. Linear boundaries could account for the data only in tasks involving separable dimension stimuli and where the boundary separating the categories was orthogonal to the psychological dimensions. Linear boundaries provided poor fits to the classification data in situations involving integral dimensions or when the boundary needed to be oriented in oblique directions in the space. The results were consistent with the selection-attention assumptions embodied in the exemplar model. It was argued that similar assumptions about selective attention need to be incorporated within decision bound models.