{"pk":27799,"title":"Feature Ratings and Empirical Dimension-Specific Similarity Explain Distinct Aspect of Semantic SImilarity Judgments","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Predicting semantic similarity judgments is often modeled as\na three-step process: collecting feature ratings along multiple\ndimensions (e.g., size, shape, color), computing similarities\nalong each dimension, and combining the latter into an\naggregate measure (Nosofsky, 1985). However, such models\nfail to account for over half of the variance in similarity\njudgments pertaining to complex, real-world objects (e.g.,\nelephant and bear), even when taking into account their\ndescription along dozens of dimensions. To help explain this\nprediction gap, we propose a two-fold approach. First, we\nprovide the first empirical evidence of a mismatch between\nsimilarity predicted by feature ratings and that reported by\nparticipants directly along individual dimensions. Second, we\nshow that, surprisingly, separate sub-domains within directly\nreported dimension-specific similarities carry different\namounts of information for predicting object-level similarity\njudgments. Accordingly, we show that differentially\nweighting directly reported dimension-specific similarity sub-\ndomains significantly improves prediction of free (i.e.,\nunconstrained) semantic similarity judgments.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Similarity judgements"},{"word":"Semantics"},{"word":"Representation"},{"word":"Feature dimension"},{"word":"Object"},{"word":"Category"}],"section":"Publication-based-Talks","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9kv8j33k","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Marius","middle_name":"Catalin","last_name":"Iordan","name_suffix":"","institution":"Princeton","department":""},{"first_name":"Cameron","middle_name":"T","last_name":"Ellis","name_suffix":"","institution":"Yale","department":""},{"first_name":"Michael","middle_name":"","last_name":"Lesnick","name_suffix":"","institution":"Princeton","department":""},{"first_name":"Daniel","middle_name":"N","last_name":"Osherson","name_suffix":"","institution":"Princeton","department":""},{"first_name":"Jonathan","middle_name":"D","last_name":"Cohen","name_suffix":"","institution":"Princeton","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2018-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/27799/galley/17439/download/"}]}