COGNITIVEPSYCHOLOGY

4, 351-377 ( 1973)

Perceptual-Cognitive Explorations of a Toroidal

Set of Free-Form Stimuli1

ROGERN. SHEPARD* AND GREGORY W. CERMAK

Stanford University

A polar-coordinate analogue of Fourier synthesis generates organic-

appearing “free forms” that can be continuously deformed along any desired
number of difficult-to-verbalize dimensions. Since the dimensions are also
circular, the forms correspond to points on the surface of a torus which,
though conveniently finite, is free of bounding edges. Two experiments ex-
plore a particular two-dimensional set of 81 such forms. The first shows that
perceived pair-wise similarities among the individual forms are well ex-
plained purely in terms of the distances among their corresponding points
in the toroidal parameter space. The second, however, establishes that
forms that tend to be grouped together as having the same cognitive inter-
pretation define regions in parameter space that are variously shaped or
even bimodal and, hence, that cannot be explained solely on the basis of
the fixed set of pair-wise similarities. The stimuli appear to offer a novel
combination of cognitive richness and low-dimensional parametric control.

In studies that we are undertaking on mental imagery (Shepard, in

press), nonverbal memory (Cermak, 1971), and the formation of ab-
stract perceptual schemata, we have found need for a set of visual stimuli
with properties not wholly available in sets previously devised for some-
what similar purposes (e.g., see Attneave & Arnoult, 1956; Evans &
Mueller, 1966; Posner, 1969, p. 63; Torgerson, 1965). First, we required
that the stimuli, taken individually, be more naturalistic, organic, unitary,
and Gestalt-like than the relatively artificial, geometrical, and verbally-
analyzable stimuli often used in past studies, e.g., of “concept learning.”
Second, we required that the psychological relations among the stimuli
be adequately representable in a continuous parameter space that is

i This work was supported by National Science Foundation grants GB-31971X and
GS-2283 to the first author. The report itself was completed during the first author’s
tenure as a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in
the Behavioral Sciences. The authors are indebted to John Greaves of the Department
of Electrical Engineering, University of California at Santa Barbara, for assistance in
preliminary computer explorations of the parameter space of the stimuli and to Dr.
Blake Wattenbarger of the Bell Telephone Laboratories for discovering an omission
in our description of the stimuli in an earlier draft of this paper.
* Requests for reprints should be sent to R. N. Shepard; Department of Psychology,
University of California, Berkeley, California 94720.
351
Copyright 0 1973 by Academic Press, Inc.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
352 SHEPARD AND CERMAK

finite but isotropic and unbounded and that is completely characterized

by a small number of independently variable but relatively unverbalizable
dimensions. And third, we required that the method of generating the
stimuli conform to an explicit, simple, and general rule that would lend
itself to communication, implementation by computer graphics, and ready
extension to the generation of additional sets of stimuli.
Our purpose here is to present (a) a general method for constructing
sets of stimuli with these properties, (b) a particular two-dimensional
array of 81 such stimuli,’ and (c) some relevant calibrational data that

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

FIG. 1. The 81 free forms, together with the redundant row (J) and column ( 10)
that complete the two circular dimensions of the toroidal surface.

‘Copies of the 81 free-form stimuli can be obtained by writing to the first author
at the Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305.
 PERCEPTION OF FREE-FORM STIMULI 353

have arisen from two preliminary psychological experiments using this

particular set of 81 stimuli.
THE STIMULI AND THEIR GENERATION
A set of 81 distinct stimuli exhibiting the properties that we desired
is illustrated in Fig. 1. Each of these free forms is a compound curve,
obtained by averaging six elementary closed curves with from one to six
equally spaced convex “lobes” each. In the array shown, the weights and
angular orientations of the six component curves are fixed, except for the
orientations of the two-lobed and three-lobed components, which are
varied to yield the progressions that are evident in the horizontal and
vertical directions of the two-dimensional array. An important property
of these two dimensions is that they are relatively novel and difficult to
verbalize-at least in any way that is general enough to extend beyond
the immediate neighborhood of any one form.
Since the effect of varying the angular orientation of an n-lobed com-
ponent repeats every 360/n degrees, the two dimensions of the array in
Fig. 1 are circular in the sense that the bottom row (J) is identical to the
top row (A), and the right-most column ( 10) is identical to the left-most
column (1). This array is intrinsically toroidal, therefore, in the sense
that the square could be curved around so as to bring its opposite edges
into coincidence-in which case the square becomes topologically equiv-
alent to the two-dimensional surface of a torus or “doughnut” (cf.,
Shepard & Carroll, 1966, p. 589). The important consequence is that
the whole array, though finite, has everywhere the same, unbounded
structure.

General Equations for the Fourier Synthesis of Free Forms

The equation for the N-harmonic Fourier approximation to a periodic
function with period 2~ can be written in the form

where wn is the weight (or amplitude) and +n is the initial phase angle
(0 2 +n < 27) of the nth sinusoidal harmonic (which has period 2,/n).
Since f(t) has period 2rr, we could replace the linear variable t with
the circular variable 0 in the above equations and have the assurance that
f (8)-treated now as the radial coordinate, T( f?), in a polar coordinate
system-will trace out a closed curve around the origin as 0 makes one
complete circuit from 0 to 2~. In this case, since the sinusoidal harmonic
with period 2rr/n becomes itself a closed curve with n positive lobes, it is
convenient to replace the initial-phase-angle variable, +,?a,with a new
354 SHEPARD
AND CERMAK
variable On = +Jn which can be interpreted as the angular orientation
of that n-lobed component closed curve. The polar-coordinate version of
Eq. 1 then takes the form

f(e) = j lw?lcos[n@
+ &JII, (2)
12=0

where, here, 0 _< On < 277/n only. Note, however, that unless the radial
coordinate, f( 0)) retains the same sign during the entire circuit, the
resulting curve will not be a simple closed curve but will intersect itself
at least once.
Perhaps the most natural way to ensure that f( 0) traces out the kind
of simple closed curve that we require is to apply the exponential trans-
formation which maps the entire real line into just its non-negative half.
We are left, however, with a choice as to whether the exponential is to be
applied (a) after both the weights and the summation, (b) after the
weights but before the summation, or (c) before both the weights and
the summation. The last alternative is perhaps the most closely analogous
to standard Fourier synthesis in that the (exponentially transformed)
elementary closed curves are themselves all simple closed curves of
fixed shape and, particularly, in that the resulting final curve is then a
strictly linear combination of these elementary components. As it hap-
pened, however, we began our experimental work using the second
alternative (b), which takes the form

7-p) = f exp (wvl,COS[VZ(~

+ e,)] 1. (3)
X=0

Nevertheless, since we also chose the weights, We, all to be equal and
close to unity, the degree of departure from the third (more linear)
alternative is quite small for the particular set of 81 free forms shown
in Fig. 1.

Generation of the Particular Array of 81 Free Forms

For the purposes of generating this actual set of forms on the computer,
we varied only two parameters; namely, the angular orientations, ez and
OS, of the two-lobed and three-lobed components, respectively. All six
nonzero weights and the orientations of the four other elementary com-
ponents were fixed as follows:
wn = .8 for n = 1, 2, 3, 4. 5, 6;
81 = T/2, 84 = 0, 85 = T/10, es = 7r/6; (4)

where, as usual, all angles (On and 0) are measured counterclockwise

 PERCEPTION OF FREE-FORM STIMULI 355

from a vector extending horizontally to the right of the origin. The values
of the four fixed angles were chosen so that all of the corresponding
elementary curves would have one lobe pointing straight down. This
ensured that the most prominent hump on all of the final free forms
pointed downward and, hence, minimized any temptation on the part
of subjects to rotate one form into a different orientation in comparing
it with another form.
Given the above-indicated fixed values, a two-dimensional continuum
of free forms can be generated by continuous variation of the two cyclical
free parameters, Q2 (between 0 and 180” ) and ti3 (between 0 and 120” ).
In order to generate a manageably finite set of stimuli, however, we
divided the complete cycle on each dimension into nine equally-spaced
steps (of angles ~19 and 2~127 for B2 and d3, respectively). In this way
we were able to generate a nine-by-nine toroidal set, which can be
opened out into a nine-by-nine square lattice as shown in Fig. 1. (In
order to avoid strict bilateral symmetry in the forms, the nine increments
in tiz and 8, were started from .2 and - .2, respectively.) The appearance
of the n-lobed component curves and the way in which they combined
to synthesize one of the free forms (B3) are illustrated in Fig. 2.
In the generation of each of the 81 closed curves, the computer pro-

all of these

c;

+
one of these

+
one of these

final free form - ’

FIG. 2. Steps in the synthesis of a free form. (Here the four fixed components are
combined with the two-lobed component B and the three-lobed component 3 to
yield the final free form B3.)
356 SHEPAFtD AND CERMAK

gram proceeded through one complete cycle of the angular variable

0 from 0 to 2~ in 600 incremental steps of .6” each. At each such step,
the program (a) computed the corresponding radial coordinate T( 0) in
accordance with Eqs. 3 and 4 and the appropriate values, t& and e3, for
the particular free form being generated, and (b) converted the resulting
polar coordinates, 6’ and r( e), into rectangular coordinates, x and y, suit-
able for controlling the Cal Comp plotter that was subsequently used to
draw the short straight segments between successive points around the
curve in the r-y plane. For reasons that are not relevant for the particular
work reported here, the x and y coordinates were linearly normalized
for each form, before final plotting, so that the overall heights and widths
were equal to the same constant for all 81 forms. Since this normalization
was small and simply related to the variable parameters, & and e3, it
can be disregarded for present purposes3
Figure 1 exhibits the array of forms as they appear after normalization.
This array has certain specific structural properties that stem from the
particular values chosen, in Eq. 4, for the parameters that are fixed and
therefore common to all 81 forms. Corresponding to these fixed values is
the form, shown in the upper right of Fig. 2, that is the sum of just the
four fixed component curves. It represents, in a sense, the schematic form
or prototype that underlies the whole array. (Note the already mentioned
downward-projecting lobe or “tail,” which gives all 81 forms derived
from this underlying prototype their natural relative orientations.)
Another property (which is also a consequence of aligning all four
fixed components in this way) is the bilateral symmetry of the prototype.
This ensures that within the entire toroidal manifold of the variable
stimuli there are four “antipodal” points representing bilaterally sym-
metric individual free forms. (These correspond to the points at which
each of the two variable components are oriented symmetrically with
respect to the vertical axis.) Forms D5, D9, 15, and 19 in the finite array
of Fig. 1 come closest to these four equidistant antipodal points in the
underlying parameter space.
A final, directly related property is that, for every nonsymmetric form
’ Owing to the alignment of the fixed components, all with one lobe straight down,
without normalization the forms tended to be slightly elongated in the vertical
direction. The extent of this elongation varied smoothly and cyclically across the two-
dimensional parameter space, with the orientations of the two variable components.
Thus the mean ratio of vertical to horizontal extent achieved maximum values-of
1.42 and 1.29 for Column 5 and Row I, respectively-when one of the variable com-
ponents was also oriented in a similar vertical manner, and achieved minimum and
near-unity values-of 1.00 and 1.10 for the diametrically opposite Column 9 and
Row D, respectively-when one of the variable components was oriented in a com-
pensatingly horizontal manner.
 PERCEPTION OF FREE-FORM STIMULI 357

in the underlying continuous array, there is one other form in the array
that is an exact mirror image of that form. Mirror images are always
situated at equal distances in opposite directions from the points repre-
senting the inherently symmetric forms. Such pairs are only approxi-
mately realized in the finite sample of 81 forms. However, the approxima-
tion is quite close. Thus, corresponding to form B4, for example, there is
the (approximate) mirror image F6, which is equidistant on the opposite
side of the symmetric form D5 in Fig. 1.

EXPERIMENT I. DETERMINATION OF PAIR-WISE SIMILARITIES

Two fundamental kinds of structural information about the psycholog-
ical relations among the stimuli in any particular set concern (a) the
perceived pair-wise similarities among those stimuli and (b) the way in
which those stimuli are perceived to group naturally into subsets of
stimuli that share a common property (Shepard, 1963, 1964, in press).
This first experiment was undertaken to obtain judgments of pair-wise
similarity among the stimuli shown in Fig. 1 and, thus, to provide the
first of these two kinds of information. On the basis of such judgments
of similarity it becomes possible to construct “iso-similarity contours” in
the underlying parameter space of the stimuli and, hence, to estimate
such things as (a) the overall perceptual homogeneity of the space, (b)
the relative saliencies of the two dimensions, and (c) the underlying
form of the psychological rule of combination for differences along the
two dimensions-i.e., whether the perceptual metric is Euclidean, Min-
kowskian, etc. ( Shepard, 1964).

Method
Subjects. The Ss were 18 Stanford undergraduates whose participation
partially fulfilled their course requirement for Introductory Psychology.
Procedure. Since it appeared impractical to obtain judgments of sim-
ilarity for all 3240 possible pairs of the 81 stimuli shown in Fig. 1, just
nine representative ones of these forms were selected as “targets,” and
judgments were obtained of the similarity of each of the 81 forms to each
of just these nine targets. Each S was presented with the nine target
forms one at a time in a random order and, for each target, was given a
shuffled deck of two-by-two inch pictures of the 81 forms and was asked
to make a judgment of the similarity of each form in the deck to the
presented target form. He was asked to do this in two stages: first to
select “about 20” forms “which look like, or give the same impression as,
the target,” and second to select from these, by the same kind of process
of one-by-one comparison with the target, “about six” forms “very similar
to the target” and “about ten” forms “next most similar to the target.” In
358 SHEPARD AND CERMAK

short, for each of the nine representative targets, each S finally produced
a small subset of the 81 forms that he perceived as being very similar to
the target, and a disjoint and somewhat larger subset of the 81 forms that
he perceived as being less similar to the target than the forms in the small
first subset but more similar to the target than all of the remaining forms.

Results

Evaluation of the psychological homogeneity of the parameter space.

Figure 3 summarizes, graphically, the results for the forms selected as
“very similar” to each of the nine targets. The solid points within the
square correspond to the 81 forms as already displayed in Fig. 1; the
open points redundantly just outside of each edge of the square corre-
sponds to the (solid) points just inside the opposite edge of the square
(in accordance with the toroidal structure), and the star-like points rep-
resent the nine targets. Around each target, four contours are drawn that
(except in the case of ties) include, respectively, (a) the one form most
often chosen as “very similar to the target” (which in every case was the
copy, in the deck, of the target form itself), (b) the two forms next most
often chosen as “very similar to the target,” (c) the form next most often

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
e D

D D 0 i n 0 D f D e D
FIG. 3. Isosimilarity contours constructed around points corresponding to the nine
target forms in their two-dimensional parameter space.
 PERCEPTION OF FREE-FORM STIMULI 359

chosen after those first three, and (d) the form next most often chosen
after those first four.
The fact that compact contours could be constructed of rather similar
sizes and shapes around all of the nine targets indicates, first, that per-
ceived similarity was in fact strongly determined by spatial proximity
in the underlying parameter space and, second, that this parameter space
is, to a good approximation, psychologically homogeneous or isotropic
throughout. Note for example that, for each of the nine targets, two of
the three other forms most often judged very similar to the target are
always the closest left- and right-hand neighbors of the target in the
two-dimensional array.
Estimation of the relative saliencies of the two dimensions. On the
assumption, then, that the underlying toroidal space is essentially homo-
geneous, the data for all nine targets and for both of the two levels of
judged similarity were combined in order to average out random errors
in the data and, thereby, to permit a more definitive determination of the
shapes of the iso-similarity contours. For each of the nine targets, the
two-dimensional array was first circularly translated around the torus in
the “vertical” and “horizontal” directions in such a way as to bring the
point representing that target into the central position within the same
opened-out square. A combined measure of similarity to the (now cen-
tral) target was then determined for the set of nine forms now corre-
sponding to each of the 81 points in the resulting 9 X 9 array according
to the formula,

Combined measure 2 Number judged + Number judged

1 of similarity I= .{ very similar > 1 next most similar 1.
(5)
The remarkably regular iso-similarity contours that resulted from
averaging the data for the nine targets in this way are illustrated in Fig. 4.
The innermost contour surrounds just the point corresponding to the
copy, in the deck, of the target form itself. Each of the eight outwardly
succeeding contours then encloses, in addition to all previous points, the
two points corresponding to the two forms that were next most similar
to the target according to this combined measure. The broken outermost
contour, finally, encloses (after all of those previously enclosed) the
points corresponding to the 16 next most similar forms and leaves out-
side the remaining points corresponding to the 48 least similar forms.
The uniformly horizontal elongation of the contours indicates that a
27127 or one-step rotation of the three-lobed component, though smaller
in angle, is generally more salient than a T/9 or one-step rotation of the
two-lobed component of the (normalized) free form. Indeed, on the
 SHEPAFiD AND CERMAK

2 D
. . . . . . . . . ?I
;.a 5
& z
z
?s b 5
; 4 2
22 z z
a 1 302

b 2 268-267
__
c 2 178-157

d 2 155-139

e 2 127-117

f 2 105- 83

9 2 II- 64

h 2 5s 57

i 2 57- 45

j 16 J4- 18

k 48 14 0

FIG. 4. Isosimilarity contours based upon the pooled data for all nine target forms.
(Ranges of similarity values enclosed within the successive contours are listed on the
right. )

average just about twice as many steps must be made in the horizontal
direction to produce a change that is psychologically equivalent to that
produced by a given number of steps in the vertical direction. Evidently,
if one required that the variations along the two dimensions be equiva-
lent in psychological salience, one would have to increase the weight 20~
relative to w,-at least if the forms are normalized in the manner used
here.
Comparison of fits of the Euclidean and city-block metrics. In con-
structing these contours, it was found that they could be made generally
uniform in shape only by giving them all the somewhat four-cornered or
diamond shape shown in Fig. P-as opposed, in particular, to a more
uniformly rounded, elliptical shape. This was unexpected for such seem-
ingly “unitary” or “unanalyzable” stimuli (Attneave, 1962; Garner &
Felfoldy, 1970; Hyman & Well, 1967, 1968; Shepard, 1966; Torgerson,
1958, pp. 254 & 292), since it suggests that the underlying psychological
metric of the parameter space may be closer to the Minkowslzian “city-
block” metric than to the Euclidean (Shepard, 1966). However, if the
metric is indeed non-Euclidean, then the alignment of the four “corners”
of the iso-similarity contours in the horizontal and vertical directions in
 PERCEPTION OF FREE-FORM STIMULI 361

Fig. 4 supports the notions that the two parameters that were chosen for
variation, & and OS,(a) are psychologically orthogonal to each other and
(b) correspond to the psychologically elementary or fundamental direc-
tions of variation in the two-dimensional space of these stimuli.
In order to obtain further evidence concerning the form of the under-
lying metric, the disparity between the two dimensions in Fig. 4 was
essentially eliminated by applying an affine transformation that linearly
stretched the vertical dimension relative to the horizontal by a ratio of
two to one. (The true iso-similarity contours should then approximate
circles or squares tipped through 45” depending upon whether the true
metric approximates the Euclidean or city-block variety, respectively. )
The combined measure of similarity to the target (defined in Eq. 5) was
then plotted as a function of distance from the target in this affinely
normalized space in two different ways: once with distance defined in
accordance with the usual Euclidean formula and once with distance
defined in accordance with the city-block formula. In both cases, the unit
of distance was defined in terms of a one-step displacement along the
(now relatively more compressed) horizontal dimension. Finally, for the
purposes of these two plots, the combined measures of similarity were
averaged for all stimuli that were equidistant from the target according
to both metrics.
The two resulting plots are exhibited in Fig. 5. The filled circles (which
are connected by straight line segments) are for those forms that
differ from the target along no more than one of the two dimensions.
Since the two metrics are the same in these cases, the two curves formed
by the straight line segments are identical in the two plots. The unfilled
circles are for those forms that differed from the target along both dimen-
sions at once. The distances from the target stimulus in all these cases
depend upon which rule of combination is used and, indeed, are always
greater for the city-block than for the Euclidean metric.
The fact that the first eleven of these open circles fall appreciably to
the left of the connected curve for the Euclidean metric, whereas only
the first of these points falls markedly to the right of that curve for the
city-block metric, provides further support for the tentative conclusion
that the underlying metric is closer to the city-block than to the Euclidean
variety. However, the results do not lend themselves to a very strong test.
Note, in particular, that the above statement about the relation of the
unfilled to the filled circles in the Euclidean plot is equivalent to the less
impressive statement that (only) four of the filled circles fall above the
curve formed by the unfilled circles. (Moreover, each of the filled circles
is averaged over data from only half as many cases as for each of the
unfilled circles.) SO, although the pair-wise similarity data point toward
362 SHEPARD AND CERMAK

City-Block
Metric

FIG. 5. Average similarity to target form plotted as a function both of Euclidean

and of city-block distance from that target in the two-dimensional parameter space.
(The filled and open points are based upon forms that differ from the target in one
and two parameters, respectively. )

the unexpected possibility that the psychological metric for these seem-
ingly unitary or unanalyzable stimuli may approximate the city-block
variety, we cannot conclusively establish that the expected Euclidean
metric is reliably violated for these stimuli.
In any case, the plots displayed in Fig. 5 indicate that the combined
measure of similarity decreases in a very orderly, monotone fashion with
increasing distance (however defined) from a reference stimulus in the
two-dimensional parameter space of these free-form stimuli. Quite simi-
lar, if somewhat more rapidly decreasing, monotone functions are also
obtained if we plot simply the average number of times that the forms
in each class were chosen as being “very similar to the target.” Again,
then, the perceived similarities among these forms appear to be essen-
tially determined by the distances among their corresponding points in
parameter space.
Results of a supplementary experiment. Since the results in Expt I
were based upon data from only 18 Ss and, particularly, from only nine
of the 81 possible target forms, we briefly report the results of a further
experiment that, although carried out in a different way, yielded com-
parable data from a larger sample of Ss and targets. The principal dif-
ference in procedure (which facilitates the collection of data from large
numbers of Ss) was that the forms, instead of being presented in a
 PERCEPTION OF FREE-FORM STIMULI 363

randomly-ordered deck, were presented to each S in their naturally

ordered two-dimensional array. Specifically, each of 49 Ss was given two
different sheets with 100 free forms printed on each in an arrangement
resembling that shown in Fig. 1. On each sheet one of the 100 forms
near the center was marked, and the S was instructed to place a check
mark in all other forms on that sheet that looked like the one initially
marked. The toroidal array was circularly shifted in the horizontal and
vertical directions before printing each sheet so that, overall, every one
of the 81 distinct forms appeared (near the center) as the marked “tar-
get” at least once. Encouragingly, when the data for all 81 different
targets were appropriately superimposed, the resulting isosimilarity
contours, though slightly more irregular, were virtually identical in over-
all shape to those already exhibited in Fig. 4.

EXPERIMENT II. DETERMINATION OF COHERENT SUBSETS

A complete set of static pair-wise similarities for a set of stimuli pro-
vides a very fundamental kind of information about those stimuli. HOW-
ever, it may not suffice as an exhaustive characterization of the cognitive-
perceptual relations among those stimuli. Another fundamental kind of
information, which is not in general derivable from the first, concerns
how the stimuli divide up into subsets of stimuli that are perceived to
share some property. If, for example, we ask someone to select from the
set of 81 free forms, those forms that share the property of bilateral sym-
metry, he will probably pick out forms D5, D9, 15, 19. But, far from
consisting of one compact cluster of mutually very similar stimuh in the
underlying parameter space, this subset consists of four distinct clusters
that, in fact, are mutually antipodal and thus separated from each other
by the very largest possible distances within the two-dimensional surface
of the torus.
Preliminary work with these 81 free forms indicated that the psy-
chologically most salient properties of these stimuli were their strong
tendencies toward being perceived as outlines of various familiar and
typically three-dimensional objects. Accordingly, this second experiment
was undertaken (a) to learn something about the nature of the subsets
that Ss naturally identify as consisting of free forms that have such a
particular perceptual interpretation in common, (b ) to determine such
things as the shape, compactness, and connectedness of these subsets in
the underlying parameter space, and (c) to estimate the extent to which
different Ss tend to pick out the same subsets on the basis of verba IabeIs
given to such perceptual interpretations by previous Ss. Such information
should be relevant to the design of experiments in which these stimuli
are used to study various cognitive processes.
364 SHEPARD AND CERMAK

Method
Subjects. The Ss were 16 Stanford students: eight undergraduates
recruited from Introductory Psychology as before and eight graduate
student volunteers.
Procedure. The experiment was carried out in three phases. The first
and most important phase provided information about the kinds of sub-
groups of these free forms that Ss spontaneously see as having some
perceptual interpretation in common and, incidentally, about the kinds
of verbal labels that they spontaneously use to designate such common
interpretations. Each of the eight graduate student Ss was presented with
a shuffled deck of two-by-two inch pictures of the 81 forms (as in Ex-
periment I). He was then asked to sort the 81 forms into any comfortable
number of groups such that the forms in each group “seem to belong
together” in that they are all seen as representations of the same sort of
thing or object. After completing his sorting, the S was then asked to
give, for each group that he had thus produced, a verbal name or label
to indicate how he perceived or interpreted the forms included in that
group.
Phases Two and Three, then, furnished information about the kinds
of subgroups that (other) Ss produce when they are asked to sort the
forms into subgroups specifically defined by these previously given
names. From the verbal labels produced during Phase One, eight were
seIected for these folIowing phases on the grounds (a) that they seemed
typical of the names frequently and spontaneously produced in Phase
One and (b) that they had been given to subsets that, together, tended
to cover the whole array of 81 forms without entailing an excessive de-
gree of mutual overlap (in that parameter space). In Phase Two, the
eight remaining (undergraduate) Ss were individually asked to sort the
81 forms into eight categories defined by these eight verbal labels. Fol-
lowing that, the wording of four of the eight labels was slightly revised
(in an attempt to reduce a few ambiguities that became evident during
Phase Two), In Phase Three, finally, the original (graduate-student) Ss
were asked to sort the 81 forms into the eight categories defined by these
slightly revised verbal labels.

Results
Spontaneously formed groups and their verbally assigned labels. In
Phase One, the eight individual Ss formed between 5 and 13 mutually
exclusive and exhaustive groups per S, with a mean (over the eight Ss)
of 9.6 different groups. Seven of the eight Ss provided verbal labels for
all but one (“wastebasket”) group, while one S failed to label two of his
 PERCEPTION OF FREE-FORM STIMULI 365

(nine) groups. The number of individual free forms included in any one
group for which a name was provided ranged from 2 to 28, with a mean
of 8.3 forms per group (while the residual, unnamed “wastebasket” groups
contained an average of 6.5 forms per group).
Table 1 provides summary information about the kinds of names as-
signed to the spontaneously generated groups at the end of the first
phase. Within each pair of square brackets the first integer indicates the
total number of instances in which a name of that type was given, and
the second integer indicates the number of S’swho gave at least one name
of that type. Thus, under “General Category,” we see that seven of the
eight Ss labeled at least one of their spontaneously generated groups with

TABLE 1
Frequencies With Which Ss Applied Various Categories of Verbal Labels to the
Groups into Which They Had Spontaneously Sorted the Free Forms
(The examples in the next-to-last column are designated
in terms of their rows and columns in Fig. 1.)

;EE!ERAL CATEGORY SUBCATEGORY SPECIFIC OGJECT EXAMPLE COMMENTS

[Z/Z] Facing Left B5 & Elsewhere

[Z/Z] Facing Right F5 & Elsewhere
[IO/51 Hwlarl
[Z/Z] Notnan with Hat I4 Rows H & I
[4/4] Other Face GZ-AB* (*lookinq up)
[30/7l
-lead or Face [6/3] Dog (R-L) C&E4 Mirror Images
[3/Z] Cat (R-L) C&E2 Mirror Images
[m/4] i~nllllal
[Z/2] Lion (It-L) A&H4 111rror Images
[9/3] Other Animal Cl-E9 Rows C, 0, E
-1
[4/4] Gliding Bird 19 Row I
[U/C] ~ilnqed [3/3] Gutterfly (R-L) C4-Eb Mirror Images
[l/l] Bat 15 Symmetric

[Z/Z] IMarine 12/Z] Skate 01‘ Rdy u9-D5 Bilnodal

[Z/l] I.licroscaplc [Z/l] Al,loebd C7-G7 R Elsewhere

[3/Z] Glloit 15-A3-67 Trilnodal

[5/j] iluiuanoid
[Z/l] Gingerbread Man A3-G7 Mirror Itmges

L4j3] Tree or Mushroan 03 Rows C, 0, C

[5/3] Plant For11
[l/l] Acot- I5 Sylllllle t 1‘1 c
r10/51
Xatural ObJect [l/l] Other For111 [l/l] Nolar Tooth 16 R Elsewhere
_-------.
[4/3] Colltlllellt [4/3] Africa GZ-(As*) ("Mirror hage)

[ 4/3] Delta-Wiwj Jet no II5 Bwlodal

[j/3] Al rpldllc
tl/l] Wld~-\~!llilJCY~ I (3 iy~limetri c

[3/Z] Storrc Axe 19 Sylllwtri c

j l/l 1 ,Lt' Lr?a11 lolle !. I RO\JS C, D, E
L7/3] uti,er- utr.Jet t
[2/l] tldstl-Gordon Gun U',-F9 Mirror Images
[l/l] Shoe in Lard U-C8 Mirror Iimages
366 SHEPARD AND CERMAK

a name indicating a human or animal head and also that, between them,
these seven SS produced a total of 30 groups that they labeled in this
way, Finer breakdowns of these statistics are presented in the columns
to the right, while the most general division is given at the left. The pre-
ponderance of terms pertaining to living forms indicates that these free
forms do indeed tend to be perceived as “organic” in nature. The
bracketed integers in the upper left corner, finally, indicate that a grand
total of 69 names were given for spontaneously-produced groups by the
eight Ss in Phase One.
Perceptual ambiguities of the free forms. The nature and readiness of
the verbal labels that the Ss assigned to these free forms, as well as their
own subsequent introspective reports, indicate that Ss readily perceive
these forms as outlines of familiar, three-dimensional objects. Often
several different Ss would independently arrive at the same (or a roughly
equivalent) name for a particular form. Thus, in Phase One, despite the
fact that the choice of names was completely unrestricted, three of the
eight Ss spontaneously described the form designated D5 as a jet air-
plane; and in Phases Two and Three, when the choice of names was
narrowed to just eight alternatives, all but two of the Ss chose the descrip-
tion “delta-wing jet.”
At the same time, other Ss would assign names that suggested that
they were seeing the same forms in quite different ways. Thus (over all
phases) the abovementioned form, D5, elicited the alternative verbal
labels “(sting) ray” (or “skate”) from three Ss, and the label “bird” from
two additional Ss. Even stronger evidence for differences in the way a
form was perceived is furnished by differences in the way in which the
forms were actually grouped, as well as differences merely in the way
in which those groups were then labeled. The two Ss who applied the
label “bird” to D5, for example, differed appreciably from the other SS
in their choices of other forms to be grouped with D5. In conclusion,
these free forms, despite the fact that their differences can be precisely
specified in terms of variation of just two independent parameters, ap-
pear in general to be comparable in cognitive richness to Rorschach ink
blots. An attempt has been made in Fig. 6 to give a partial indication of
the diversity of the perceptual interpretations that tend to be made of
some of these free-form stimuli.
Dispositions of the spontaneously formed groups in parameter space.
A question of some theoretical significance concerns the extent to which
a subset of those forms that are spontaneously grouped together as hav-
ing a common interpretation depart from the compact (circular or
diamond-shaped) and unimodal clusters in parameter space that we
should expect if the assignment of forms to a group were based solely
 PERCEPTION OF FREE-FORM STIMULI 367

0 D5

0 D9

--3 G2

c” 18

FIG. 6. Illustrations of how some of the forms may be seen in several quite differ-
ent ways. (For each of the four forms shown on the left, four alternative interpreta-
tions are displayed to the right.)

on pair-wise similarity to a certain prototypical “target” form. From this

standpoint, then, a striking aspect of the subsets is their very marked
variation in size and shape in the underlying two-dimensional toroidal
surface. This is schematically illustrated in Fig. 7, where contours have
been drawn around the points corresponding to some of the better-de-
fined subsets. (These contours represent a kind of averaging and smooth-
ing of the data from different Ss, including, where appropriate, the data
from Ss in the second and third phases of the experiment.)
Some of the subsets do tend to be reasonably compact, such as, for
example, those labeled “Jet or Ray” ( D5), “Butterfly” (near C4), “Ginger-
bread Man” (A3), or “Acorn or Bat” (15). But other subsets have distri-
butions that are much more extensive (as in the case of “Woman in
Hat”) or convoluted (as in the cases of “Animal Head Facing Right” or
“Animal Head Facing Left”). And, finally, some subsets have distributions
in the underlying parameter space that, though compact, are definitely
bimodal-even for individual Ss. The pair of groups labeled “Jet or Ray”
and centered at D5 and D9 provide an especially clear example. Among
the eight Ss of Phase One, all but one sorted the forms D5 and D9 into
the very same group (and the two different groups into which those
forms were sorted by the one remaining S were given seemingly almost-
368 SHEPARD AND CERMAK

1 2 3 4,‘5 6 7 8 9

123456789
FIG. 7. Subsets of points in parameter space corresponding to forms that may be
given the same cognitive interpretation. (The verbal label within each contour in-
dicates the kind of interpretation that may occur in that region.)

equivalent labels, viz., “German shepherd” and “wolf”). More signifi-

cantly, for all but one of these Ss, the two clusters constituting this group
were completely disconnected in parameter space; i.e., the forms between
D5 and D9 were not assigned to that same group. (And this bimodality,
centered at D5 and D9, was also exhibited in the same clear-cut manner
by half of the Ss in the later two phases of the experiment.) Another kind
of bimodality is illustrated by those forms that appear in mirror-image
pairs with the same interpretation, as in the cases labeled “Butterfly” and
“Gingerbread Man” (in which the same objects may be seen as tipped
45” either to the right or the left). (See “Comments” in the right-most
column of Table 1. )
In general, owing to the presence of such mirror images, each subset
of forms that are not themselves bilaterally symmetric has a corresponding
subset that is disposed symmetrically to it in parameter space with re-
spect to the four bilaterally symmetric forms indicated by stars in Fig. 7.
Thus, corresponding to the subset labeled “Animal Head Facing Right”
(enclosed by the solid curve), there is the corresponding reversed and
inverted subset labeled “Animal Head Facing Left” (enclosed by the
 PERCEPTION OF FREE-FORM STIMULI 369

broken curve). However some interpretations (such as that labeled

“Continent of Africa”) are precluded or at least greatly weakened by a
left-right reversal of the free forms.
The mean number of spatially-disconnected subsets into which the
groups (including the “wastebasket” group) divided was 2.3 and 3.7 for
Phases One and Two, respectively. Except in the clear cases of bimodality
mentioned above, however, one subset typically contained most of the
forms assigned to that group as a whole. Specifically for Phases One and
Two, the proportions of forms in the principal connected subset were .77
and .63, respectively, and, for forms that were adjacent to some other
form in the same group, these proportions increased to .86 and .79,
respectively.
The general conclusions, here, seem to be the following: On the one
hand, the underlying parameter space provides a very convenient frame-
work for representing the groups into which Ss tend to sort the forms.
Moreover this space is directly relevant in the sense that most of the forms
sorted into any one group typically cluster together into one or two
internally connected subsets in the space. But, on the other hand, the
fact that the spatial representations of the spontaneously produced sub-
sets vary greatly in size and shape and sometimes even consist of two or
more widely separated clumps seems to establish that Experiment II
taps a variety of cognitive functioning that was not operative in Experi-
ment I. Just what forms will be seen as representing the same object ap-
parently cannot be adequately explained solely in terms of the metric
of perceptual proximity among the free forms themselves which, ac-
cording to Experiment I, was well accounted for in terms just of the
homogeneous, two-dimensional structure of the underlying parameter
space.
Perceptual continuities and discontinuities in parameter space. The
simple closed curves drawn in Fig. 7 cannot fully indicate the extent to
which groups of forms seen as having a common interpretation may vary
from S to S or may, for some Ss, split into two or more subgroups. (Thus,
what some SS lump into a group labeled “animal head,” other Ss divide
into two or more distinct groups labeled “dog facing right,” “cat facing
right,” and so on.) A more detailed illustration of this is presented in
Fig. 8 for just the major group labeled “Animal Head” which, according
to Table 1, was the group comprising the largest number of individual
names (viz., 20). The diagram in Fig. 8 is confined to the case labeled
“Animal Head It” in Fig. 7 (which, except for a reversal and inversion
of the pattern as a whole, is essentially the same as that labeled ‘Animal
Head L”). The forms situated at the overlap of the two regions “Animal
Head R” and “Animal Head L” are, incidentally, akin to the reversible
 SHEPARD AND CERMAK

123456789

H/. . . . . . . .

123456789
FIG. 8. A more detailed breakdown of points corresponding to forms that may be
seen as the head of an animal facing to the right.

figure presented by Jastrow ( 1900, p. 295), which can be seen either as

the head of a duck facing left or as the head of a rabbit facing right.)
The heavy curve encloses, again, the subset of forms that can most
compellingly be seen as animal heads (looking to the right), while the
larger broken curve encloses an additional “penumbra” of forms that
sometimes, but less often, are also seen in this way. The heavier straight
lines in the figure indicate the boundaries at which there appears to be
a qualitative shift in the interpretation of a certain bump in the free
form. Thus, as we move upward across the horizontal line near the top,
from dog and cat-like forms to lion and hippo-like forms, a bump that
had been interpreted as the animal’s brow becomes reinterpreted as its
nose or nostril. Likewise, as we move into the region of bird-like forms,
the bump that had been interpreted as the animal’s ear becomes rein-
terpreted as a crest, (See Fig. 9, where the forms themselves are shown
with certain features sketched in to make clear how Ss may be inter-
preting these forms. For purposes of continuity, the toroidal surface has
been circularly translated in the horizontal direction in this figure.)
Consistency of sorting on the basis of the verbal labels. In order to de-
fine the eight categories into which the forms were to be sorted in Phases
Two and Three, the Ss were given the following verbal labels (except
 371

A A

B B

C C

D D

E E

F F

FIG. 9. A more concrete illustration of how those forms may be seen as heads of
different kinds of animals facing right.

for slight differences in the wording of Labels 1, 2,4, and 6 during Phase
Two) :
1. Large-nosed face pointing right or small-nosed face left,
2. Large-nosed face pointing left or small-nosed face right,
3. Delta-wing jet,
4. Hawk gliding or wide-winged airplane,
5. African continent,
6. Ray or skate,
7. Africa reversed or a lumpy head,
8. None of the above, garbage.
At an extreme of high consistency in sorting, the label “Delta-wing
jet” led to sortings in which 92% of the forms placed in that category were
either within or at least adjacent to the two compact regions labeled
“Jet and Ray” in Fig. 7, where “adjacent” is here taken to include forms
that are just one step outside these regions in a vertical, horizontal, or
diagonal direction. (Specifically, 7C%were strictly within, while 22% were
adjacent in this sense.) Moreover, the remaining 8% were concentrated
near the two corners labeled “Bird or Axe” in Fig. 7, where the forms
also suggest the outlines of gliding airplanes. Almost as consistently, the
label “African continent” led to sortings in which 81% of the forms were
within or adjacent to the region labeled “Africa” in Fig. 7 (with, here,
46%within and 35% adjacent).
 372 SHEPARD AND CJIRhL4K

At an extreme of low consistency, on the other hand, Labels 1, 2, 6,

and of course 8 led some of the Ss to depart markedly from other Ss in
the way they sorted the forms. Apparently, these latter verbal labels are
relatively much more vague. Label 1, for example, does not specify
whether the “face” is human or animal, tilted up or down, and so on.
Whether the sortings were consistent or inconsistent, though, the ar-
rangement in parameter space of the forms selected on the basis of a
particular verbal label by any one S provides a concrete and objective
representation of how that S was in fact interpreting that label (cf.,
Shepard, 1968).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The results of Experiments I and II illustrate three significant facts
about the set of 81 free forms described here.
First, these stimuli succeed in realizing, at the same time, (a) the pre-
cision and convenience of low-dimensional parametric control that has
generally been restricted to such cognitively-impoverished stimuli as
homogeneous colors, pure tones, or abstract geometrical figures (Experi-
ment I), and ( b) the cognitive complexity and meaningfulness that has
generally been obtainable only in such unsystematically specified or
varied stimuli as ink blots, naturally occurring objects, or words (Ex-
periment II),
Second, (a) despite the limitation to only two dimensions of variation
and (b) despite the great readiness of Ss to come up with verbal labels
for the various forms themselves, these Ss show no inclination to label
the dimensions along which these free forms vary in the underlying pa-
rameter space. Indeed, it appears unlikely that the Ss (who always sorted
the 81 forms from a shuffled deck) had any notion even of how many-
let alone precisely which-dimensions were varied in the set of forms.
Third, the toroidal structure of the set of stimuli ensures both (a) that
there are no special boundary stimuli and (b) that (unlike the case of
other isotropic structures such as the surface of a sphere) the array can
be cut open and flattened out into the Euclidean plane without distor-
tions (except, of course, at the cuts themselves). As we saw in Figs. 1,
3-4, and 7-9, such a flattened two-dimensional representation of the
stimuli furnishes a particularly convenient framework for displaying ex-
perimental results and interpretations.
Some Cognitive Phenomena that Might be Studied
Nonverbal memory. The difficulty of verbalizing the dimensions along
which the stimuli vary would seem to make these stimuli particularly
suitable for investigating purely visual memory ( Cermak, 1971). For
 PERCEPTION OF FREE-FORM STIMULI 373

this purpose, it may prove handy that, in opening out the curved torus
into the flat plane, we are free to make the cuts wherever we wish. Thus,
we can always arrange to bring the stimulus of interest into the central
portion of the flattened array (as was done, here, in Figs. 4 and 9 and in
the experiment supplemental to Experiment I). For, an especially con-
venient way to determine precision or drift and decay of visual memory
might be that in which the S himself is given a suitably opened-out copy
of the whole toroidal array and is asked simply to indicate which free
form is the one that he saw before.
Another interesting question, which we are currently pursuing our-
selves, concerns how memory for the visual shape of one of these free
forms is affected either (a) by presenting it with markings filled in (as
in Fig. 6) to force an interpretation of that form as a particular object
or (b) by presenting it with a verbal instruction merely to imagine the
form as that object (cf., the following discussions of “categorical percep-
tion” and “mental imagery”).
Categorical perception. Liberman and his associates at Haskins Labo-
ratory have reported evidence that in the perception of synthesized speech
sounds, as the physical parameters (e.g., transitions of certain formants)
are continuously varied, the sound is perceived as changing discontinu-
ously from one phoneme to another (Liberman, Harris, Hoffman, &
Griffith, 1957). They have argued, moreover, that such “categorical per-
ception” is unique to perception in the “speech mode” and, so, reverts
to relative continuity whenever the same or comparable stimuli are not
interpreted specifically as speech (Liberman, Cooper, Shankweiler, &
Studdert-Kennedy, 1967; Mattingly, Liberman, Syrdal, & Halwes, 1971).
It seems however that, as we move from one form to the next in Fig. 1,
the way in which those forms are perceived can change either relatively
continuously or discontinuously, depending upon whether we look at
those forms as meaningless two-dimensional shapes or as meaningful
three-dimensional objects. (The first perceptual attitude was compatible
with the instructions in Experiment I, whereas the latter perceptual at-
titude was surely encouraged by the instructions in Experiment II.) There
is at least a suggestion, then, that the phenomenon of categorical per-
ception, demonstrated so clearly by the researchers at Haskins, is not
(as they imply) confined specifically to the perception of speech. Pas-
sibly that phenomenon arises, quite generally, whenever the perception
consists of an interpretive act that carries the perceiver beyond the
immediately given visual or auditory pattern to some relatively more
fixed and discrete object, image, or meaning.
A technique that may permit the investigation of categorical percep-
tion with even more completely natural objects is suggested by the possi-
374 SHEPARD AND CERMAK

bility of an analogue of the converse of Fourier synthesis, namely, Fourier

analysis. It is striking that, in varying only two parameters chosen more
or less arbitrarily (viz., 8, and &), shapes were obtained that so closely
resemble the outlines of such real objects as airplanes, continents, heads
of animals, and the like. Clearly, we could achieve an approximation to
the outline of a particular object-say the profile of a German shepherd’s
head-with considerable fidelity if we permitted ourselves to vary all
of the parameters, Bi and wi. Indeed, given any object with a reasonably
finite, continuous, and simply closed outline, we should be able to use a
kind of Fourier analysis to estimate the phase and amplitude coefficients,
Bi and wi, (up to some specified order) that would achieve the most
faithful approximation to that outline.
Once these coefficients are determined for two or three different ob-
jects, they then define a unique line or a plane, respectively, through
their common parameter space. It then becomes straightforward to con-
struct series of other forms that grade directly and continuously from the
outline of one natural object into the outline of another. From a study of
reactions to such artificially synthesized intermediate cases, then, some-
thing might be learned about how we perceive and conceptualize natural
objects (such as horses and cows), which ordinarily do not grade con-
tinuously into each other, and, in particular, about the extent to which
“categorical perception” is a quite general cognitive phenomenon.
Mental imagery. Seeing an outline as a three-dimensional object repre-
sents an intermediate case between the two extremes (a) of actually
perceiving the three-dimensional object itself and (b) of merely imagining
it in the absence of any related external cues. It constitutes a kind of
guided imagery and, as such, furnishes an additional possibility for the
external manipulation of imagery. Perky’s early studies of the degree of
subjective equivalence between perception and imagination (Perky,
1910; Segal, 196S), for example, could be carried out with tighter control
and measurement by having Ss imagine a specified alternative (such as
one illustrated in Fig. 6) within a particular outline presented at a
superthreshold level. Surreptitiously, then, the experimenter could ar-
range for threshold-level optical projection, within that same outline, of
interior markings that correspond either to that interpretation or to some
other entirely different interpretation. Moreover, Ss could then be asked
simply to indicate, in an array such as is displayed in Fig. 6, which pic-
ture corresponds most closely to what they thought they either imagined
or actually saw (or, alternatively, they could even be asked to draw ap-
propriate markings in a copy of the superthreshold outline). In connection
with such an experiment, notice (in Fig. 6) that, whereas it is easy to
imagine one of the empty outlines shown on the left as any of the objects
 PERCEPTION OF FREE-FORM STIMULI 375

illustrated to its right, it is quite difficult to imagine one of those objects

on the right as a different one of those objects.
Formation of perceptual sclwmuta. It has often been lamented that
most studies of so-called “concept formation” have had little to do with
the formation of new concepts. Typically the learning of the concept has
amounted merely to discovering which of several already well-learned
concepts (e.g., “large” or “small,” “black” or “white,” “round” or “square”)
is relevant to the response or, additionally, to discovering which logical
combination of these well-learned concepts (e.g., whether a conjunctive
or disjunctive one) is required (e.g., Shepard, Hovland, & Jenkins, 1961).
But, surely, this is not at all the way in which a child learns to recognize
cats or horses (despite great variations in individual animals, their posi-
tions, and conditions of viewing), or to discriminate these from dogs or
cows. Our original purpose in generating a toroidal set of free-forms
was, in fact, to obtain a more naturalistically organic and graded array
of stimuli for the study of truly new perceptual concepts or schemata.
A question of considerable theoretical significance concerns the psycho-
logical laws that govern whether (and how readily) any particular sub-
set of stimuli from such a graded array can be integrated into a single
perceptual schema. And now, of course, we rule out subsets (such as
those illustrated in Fig. 7) that, in the case of adult Ss anyway, are al-
ready so integrated. Presumably, such learning will be easier if the stimuli
corresponding to the new concept form a compact, connected, and per-
haps even circular (or diamond-shaped) subset in the underlying pa-
rameter space (Shepard, 1963, 1964; Shepard & Chang, 1963). In view
of the present Experiment I, this certainly would be expected if what is
learned is a certain “prototype” (e.g., see Posner, 1969; Posner & Keele,
1968) together with a certain radius of inclusion about that prototype in
the underlying perceptual space.
On the other hand, it seems abundantly clear that, if we are talking
about the actual proximal stimuli with which Ss must in fact begin their
processing, then naturalistic concepts do not generally correspond to such
compact, regular subsets of these stimuli. The set of retinal projections
corresponding to the concept “dog” is, for example, extremely diverse
and difficult to characterize (as those approaching problems of pattern
recognition from the standpoint of artificial intelligence well know). We
are left, then, with the general problem of determining (a) the condi-
tions under which we are able to integrate an irregular set of stimuli into
a single perceptual concept and (b) the mechanism by which we do this
when the stimuli are not definable in terms either of any one prototype
or of any already-learned common property, but seem to be connected
only by a certain degree of “family resemblance” among themselves (cf.,
376 SHEPAFD AND CERMAK

Price, 1953; Wittgenstein, 1953). Is such a concept mastered simply as a

disjunction of several strategically chosen prototypes? Or are we faced
with the need to posit fundamentally different mechanisms involving,
perhaps, internal remappings of the perceptual space, or even internal
rules of transformation that somehow parallel the rules governing how
objects in the external world project onto the sensory surface under
physical transformations of lighting, distance, and orientation (Shepard,
in press; Shepard & Metzler, 1971)?

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(Accepted August 22, 1972)