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Detection and Recognition Measures of Shape Discrimination

Abstract

THE ease with which an animal differentiates shapes is commonly measured by presenting it with two shapes, either simultaneously or successively, over a number of trials and rewarding a response specific to one shape but not to the other1. Measures of performance obtained in this way have recently been used to develop hypotheses2–4 about the way in which the visual system analyses input relating to shape. Common to all the hypotheses is the claim that the difficulty an animal has in discriminating between two shapes gives an index of the similarity of the signals produced in the visual system by these shapes. The present communication considers behavioural tests of this claim.

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OVER, R. Detection and Recognition Measures of Shape Discrimination. Nature 214, 1272–1273 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/2141272a0

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