Learning to categorize perceptually similar stimuli can result in people becoming more sensitive to differences along perceptual dimensions that are relevant to category membership and/or less sensitive to equivalent differences along irrelevant perceptual dimensions. These effects of acquired distinctiveness and acquired equivalence may be caused…

Evidence that learning rule-based (RB) and information-integration (II) category structures can be dissociated across different experimental variables has been used to support the view that such learning is supported by multiple learning systems. Across 4 experiments, we examined the effects of 2 variables, the delay between response and feedback…

Working memory is crucial for many higher level cognitive functions, ranging from mental arithmetic to reasoning and problem solving. Likewise, the ability to learn and categorize novel concepts forms an indispensable part of human cognition. However, very little is known about the relationship between working memory and categorization. This…

Fifty two- to three-year olds performed paired-associate or control tasks with response items that were related or unrelated. Children in the related task performed more slowly than children in the unrelated task. Findings suggest that children in the related task experienced interference in the acquisition or retrieval of paired-associate items.…

Findings of this Israeli study suggest that perception is affected by lables, learning, and selective attention; that these effects are determined developmentally; and that as age increases, the effects of verbal cues diminish, while the effects of perceptual cues increase. (Author/DLS)