Stimulus and Response Generalization: A Stochastic Model Relating Generalization to Distance in Psychological Space
Abstract
A mathematical model is developed in an attempt to relate errors in multiple stimulus-response situations to psychological inter-stimulus and inter response distances. The fundamental assumptions are ( a ) that the stimulus and response confusions go on independently of each other, ( b ) that the probability of a stimulus confusion is an exponential decay function of the psychological distance between the stimuli, and ( c ) that the probability of a response confusion is an exponential decay function of the psychological distance between the responses. The problem of the operational definition of psychological distance is considered in some detail.
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The reward-fitting method follows the Bradley-Terry model for estimating score functions from pairwise preferences and is the specialization of the Luce-Shephard choice rule to preferences over trajectory segments.
“This follows the Bradley-Terry model (Bradley and Terry, 1952) for estimating score functions from pairwise preferences, and is the specialization of the Luce-Shephard choice rule (Luce, 2005; Shepard, 1957) to preferences over trajectory segments.”
From Deep reinforcement learning from human preferences (2017) · cites this paper as Shepard, 1957
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References 28 · Cited by 462
- Authors
- Shepard, R. N.
- Affiliations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory (US)
- Corresponding author
- Shepard, Roger N.
- Venue
- Psychometrika
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 1957-12
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 325-345
- ISSN
- 0033-3123 (ISSN-L)
- 1860-0980
- OpenAlex
- W2050985708
- Cited by
- 462
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 13
- FWCI
- 2.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychometrika (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Categorization, perception, and language
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistical Methods and Applications
- Keywords
- stimulus-response generalization, psychological distance, psychological space, error probability, exponential decay, stochastic modeling
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