Robert M. NosofskyResearch

Robert Nosofsky’s primary research is in the area of computational modeling of human category learning and representation, and relations between categorization and memory. He is best known for his development and testing of the “generalized context model” (GCM), which a major review article characterized as “one of the most influential formal models in all of psychology”. The GCM formalizes the idea that people represent categories by storing numerous individual examples of the categories in memory, and classify objects on the basis of their similarity to the stored examples. Nosofsky also pioneered the rigorous application of similarity-scaling techniques in combination with the formal model to allow for quantitative prediction of classification performance at the level of individual items. Important extensions of the model also allow it to account for the time course of categorization decision making and the prediction of classification response times. Because of its individual-example-storage assumption, the GCM and its extensions also provide a unified account of relations between categorization and old-new recognition memory. In his current work, Nosofsky has been scaling up the application of the model to real-world natural category domains; using a variety of complementary techniques for deriving high-dimensional similarity spaces for the objects under study; and applying the model to help guide the search for effective procedures for teaching science categories.

Nosofsky was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015; and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2018. Some of his other honors include the Howard Crosby Warren Medal of the Society of Experimental Psychologists (2012); the Troland Research Award of the National Academy of Sciences (1995); and the APA Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology (1993). Nosofsky is former Editor-in-Chief of Psychonomic Bulletin & Review; former member of the Governing Board of the Psychonomic Society; former president of the Society for Mathematical Psychology; and currently serves as secretary-treasurer (society head) of the Society of Experimental Psychologists.