“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.”

—  Roger Shepard

Source: "Toward a universal law of generalization for psychological science," 1987, p. 1317

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A psychological space is established for any set of stimuli by determining metric distances between the stimuli such th…" by Roger Shepard?
Roger Shepard photo
Roger Shepard 10
American psychologist 1929

Related quotes

Hans Reichenbach photo

“…the order of betweenness does not depend on mutual distances… betweenness is purely a relational order.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

Source: The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

João Magueijo photo

“Thus, the distance between any two galaxies increases in time, creating the illusion of mechanical motion. But in reality, galaxies just sit there, contemplating the spectacle of the universe creating more and more space in between them.”

João Magueijo (1967) Portuguese scientist

pg. 87
Faster than the Speed of Light

Samuel Johnson photo

“NETWORK — Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.”

Samuel Johnson book A Dictionary of the English Language

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

“The organization of science into disciplines sets up a series of ghettos with remarkable distances of artificial social space between them.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Kenneth Boulding (1973) Image and Environment. p. ix
1970s

“The organization of his ideas was all wrong; I was drawn to the memory of myself -- a mere stripling of a girl -- the day I learned that the shortest distance between any two points was a great circle.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

"The Floating Truth"

Victor Borge photo

“The shortest distance between two people is a smile.”

Victor Borge (1909–2000) Danish and US-American comedian and musician

Variant: Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.

Victor Borge photo

“The smile is the shortest distance between two persons”

Victor Borge (1909–2000) Danish and US-American comedian and musician

Smilet er den korteste afstand mellem to mennesker
http://da.wikiquote.org/wiki/Victor_Borge
From his autobiography Smilet er den korteste afstand
Source: Victor Borge, "Smilet er den korteste afstand (The Smile is the Shortest Distance)"

“Now it is the practice of astronomers to assume that brightness falls off inversely with the square of the "distance" of an object—as it would do in Euclidean space, if there were no absorption… We must therefore examine the relation between this astronomer's "distance" d… and the distance r which appears as an element of the geometry.”

Howard P. Robertson (1903–1961) American mathematician and physicist

Geometry as a Branch of Physics (1949)

Eliezer Yudkowsky photo

“We underestimate the distance between ourselves and others. Not just inferential distance, but distances of temperament and ability, distances of situation and resource, distances of unspoken knowledge and unnoticed skills and luck, distances of interior landscape.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

Beware of Other-Optimizing (April 2009) http://lesswrong.com/lw/9v/beware_of_otheroptimizing/

Related topics