Categorical perception (CP) is said to occur when a continuum of equally spaced physical changes is perceived as unequally spaced as a function of category membership (Harnad, S. (Ed.) (1987). Psychophysical and cognitive aspects of categorical perception: A critical overview. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). A common suggestion is that CP…

Two studies examined whether individual faces are perceived categorically. A linear continuum of "morphed" faces was generated between individual exemplars of familiar faces. Subjects, undergraduate students, discriminated most accurately when face-pairs straddled apparent category boundaries; thus individual faces are perceived…