Efficient coding explains the universal law of generalization in human perception

Balancing costs and performance Deciding whether a novel object is another instance of something already known or an example of something different is an easily solved problem. Empirical mapping of human performance across a wide range of domains has established an exponential relationship between the generalization gradient and interstimuli distance. Sims now shows that this relationship can be derived from a consideration of the costs of optimal information coding. Science , this issue p. 652