Editing Cognitive categorization (section)

===Category learning theories===

Category learning researchers have proposed various theories for how humans learn categories.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Ashby |first1=F. Gregory |title=Chapter 4 - Stimulus Categorization |date=1998-01-01 |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780120999750500063 |work=Measurement, Judgment and Decision Making |pages=251–301 |editor-last=Birnbaum |editor-first=Michael H. |series=Handbook of Perception and Cognition (Second Edition) |place=San Diego |publisher=Academic Press |doi=10.1016/b978-012099975-0.50006-3 |isbn=978-0-12-099975-0 |last2=Maddox |first2=W. Todd}}</ref> Prevailing theories of category learning include the prototype theory, the exemplar theory, and the decision bound theory.<ref name="Ashby, F. G. 2005"/>

The prototype theory suggests that to learn a category, one must learn the category's prototype. Subsequent categorization of novel stimuli is then accomplished by selecting the category with the most similar prototype.<ref name="Ashby, F. G. 2005"/>

The exemplar theory suggests that to learn a category, one must learn about the exemplars that belong to that category. Subsequent categorization of a novel stimulus is then accomplished by computing its similarity to the known exemplars of potentially relevant categories and selecting the category that contains the most similar exemplars.<ref name="Medin, D. L. 1978"/>

Decision bound theory suggests that to learn a category, one must either learn the regions of a stimulus space associated with particular responses or the boundaries (the decision bounds) that divide these response regions. Categorization of a novel stimulus is then accomplished by determining which response region it is contained within.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Maddox |first1=W. Todd |last2=Ashby |first2=F. Gregory |date=1996 |title=Perceptual separability, decisional separability, and the identification–speeded classification relationship. |url=http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/0096-1523.22.4.795 |journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance |language=en |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=795–817 |doi=10.1037/0096-1523.22.4.795 |pmid=8756953 |issn=1939-1277}}</ref>