DIAGNOSTIC RECOGNITION - TASK CONSTRAINTS, OBJECT INFORMATION, AND THEIR INTERACTIONS

Object recognition and categorization research are both concerned with understanding how input information matches object information in mem ory. It is therefore surprising that these two fields have evolved ind ependently, without much cross-fertilization. It is the main objective of this paper to lay out the basis of a dialogue between object recog nition and categorization research, with the hope of raising issues th at could cross-fertilize both domains. To this end, the paper develops diagnostic recognition, a framework which formulates recognition perf ormance as an interaction of task constraints and object information. I argue and present examples suggesting that diagnostic recognition co uld be fruitfully applied to the understanding of everyday object reco gnition. Issues are raised regarding the psychological status of the i nteractions specified in the framework. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.