Analytic and holistic processes in categorization

A distinction between analytic and holistic cognitive processes has long concerned psychologists, and is now enjoying a productive revival. The conceptualization of analytic and holistic processing that guides much of this current work comes from a distinction in the perceptual literature between dimensional separability and integrality (Garner, 1974; Lockhead, 1972; Shepard, 1964). In brief, analytic processing involves treating the stimulus in terms of its constituent properties-comparing stimuli by their values on independent dimensions that may be selectively attended. Holistic processing, by contrast, implies treating the stimulus as an integral whole or “blob” (Lockhead, 1972)-comparing stimuli in terms of their overall similarity relations rather than according to their values on independent dimensions.