Mark Keane
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Dublin,
Trinity College,
Ireland
Abstract
It has sometimes been pointed out that the processes which shape the
representation of items in a similarity judgement are just as
important as the items themselves; yet, less has been said about
such representation-forming processes. In this talk, I advance the
view that any part of the wider processing context can contribute to
the perceived similarity of two items; the so-called Dynamic Similarity
perspective. This view is supported by two sample psychological
demonstrations in the judgement of similarity between (i) sentential
descriptions of events and (ii) perceptual patterns that have been physically
manipulated. Finally, I provide one computational instance of the idea from
the area of case-based reasoning. The aim of the talk is really to
highlight a way of thinking about similarity, given that a computational
level account of the phenomenon seems to be some way off.