Toward a Universal Law of Generalization for Psychological Science

1987/09/11 by Roger N. Shepard · 18 citations
Psychology · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Mathematics · #Child and Animal Learning Development #Fractal and DNA sequence analysis #Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills

paper · doi:10.1126/science.3629243

openalex publication_date 1987/09/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

A psychological space is established for any set of stimuli by determining metric distances between the stimuli such that the probability that a response learned to any stimulus will generalize to any other is an invariant monotonic function of the distance between them. To a good approximation, this probability of generalization (i) decays exponentially with this distance, and (ii) does so in accordance with one of two metrics, depending on the relation between the dimensions along which the stimuli vary. These empirical regularities are mathematically derivable from universal principles of natural kinds and probabilistic geometry that may, through evolutionary internalization, tend to govern the behaviors of all sentient organisms.

Citations

• Features of similarity.
• Multidimensional Scaling by Optimizing Goodness of Fit to a Nonmetric Hypothesis
• Attention, similarity, and the identification–categorization relationship.
• Cybernetics

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• When Single-Agent with Skills Replace Multi-Agent Systems and When They Fail
• Comparison processes in category learning: From theory to behavior
• A Rational Analysis of Rule‐Based Concept Learning
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• An exemplar-based random walk model of speeded classification.
• Universal law of generalization [wikipedia]