Selective Attention and the Formation of Linear Decision Boundaries: Comment on McKinley and Nosofsky (1996)

S. C. McKinley and R. M. Nosofsky (1996) compared a linear decision-bound model with the generalized context model (GCM) in their ability to account for categorization data from experiments that used integral- or separable-dimension stimuli and required selective attention or attention to both dimensions. McKinley and Nosofsky (1996) found support for the GCM and concluded that decision-bound theory needs to incorporate assumptions about selective attention. In this commentary it is argued that (a) unlike the GCM, decision-bound theory provides a framework for independently investigating perceptual and decisional forms of selective attention; (b) the effect of stimulus integrality on the form of the optimal decision bound is misinterpreted; (c) averaged data is biased against decision-bound theory and toward the GCM; (d) many a priori predictions of the GCM are violated empirically; and (e) exemplar theory has lost much of its initial theoretical structure.