ABSTRACT
The previous chapter posed a basic question about visual object recognition: Are all types of objects recognized in the same way, or are different kinds of visual object recognition systems used to recognize different types of object? Most current work on object recognition in cognitive science has assumed, explicitly or implicitly, that all visual stimuli are recognized by a common set of mechanisms. Cognitive scientists such as Marr (1982) and Biederman (1987), who proposed comprehensive theories of object recognition, did not specify different types of representations or processes for different types of stimulus. Rather, they described a single type of system capable of recognizing as wide a range of stimuli as possible.
