Learning Categories by Generating Examples

Kurtz, Kenneth J.; Conaway, Nolan; Levering, Kimery R.; Eisenberg, Ellen

doi:10.1037/e505772014-082

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Extrapolating from these findings, we suggest a much broader role for comparison processes in the learning of perceptual categories. Researchers studying category learning have convincingly argued that the environment alone does not determine the feature space for conceptual representation and that further constraints are needed to determine the features and relations that enter into categorization processes (Murphy & Medin, 1985; Schyns et al, 1998; Wisniewski & Medin, 1994; see also Kurtz & Dietrich, 2013). Developmental evidence suggests that comparison may act to alter representations during category learning by highlighting structural commonalities and differences (Christie & Gentner, 2010; Gentner & Medina, 1998; Kotovsky & Gentner, 1996).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting anomalous features in complex stimuli: The role of structured comparison.

Kurtz

Gentner

2013

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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The ability to detect anomalies in perceived stimuli is critical to a broad range of cognitive tasks, yet acquiring this ability often requires lengthy practice. In this research, we asked whether findings from research on analogical comparison can be used to aid in the acquisition of perceptual expertise. Building on findings that comparison can facilitate the detection of differences, the present research addressed two questions: (1) Does having an alignable comparison standard improve performance on a difficult detection task? (2) Can such comparison experience improve subsequent detection performance on single anomalous targets? Across 3 experiments, university undergraduates were asked to find an anomalous bone in drawings of animal skeletons. Target items including an anomaly were presented either alone or with a correct standard. Furthermore, to evaluate the impact of ease of alignment, the correct standard was presented either mirror-reversed (low alignable) or regular (high alignable). Results showed increased accuracy when a comparison standard was present and further gains when the standard was more easily alignable. In Experiment 3, we used a between-subjects design to reveal that advance comparison (as opposed to single-item training) led to improved detection of anomalies in subsequent novel examples presented as isolated targets. We conclude that the availability of a standard and ease of alignment promote encoding and processing. Furthermore, comparison-based learning confers an ongoing advantage even without standards for comparison. Therefore, task performance in application areas requiring detection of nonobvious anomalies can be improved by providing alignable standards next to targets or in advance training.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting anomalous features in complex stimuli: The role of structured comparison.

Kurtz

Gentner

2013

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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“…In one experiment (Kurtz, Conaway, et al, 2013), the task was to construct an example of a target category given only a single feature value as a cue (by contrast, inference learning provides all but one feature value of a stimulus and asks the learner to predict the missing feature; see Table 1). In one experiment (Kurtz, Conaway, et al, 2013), the task was to construct an example of a target category given only a single feature value as a cue (by contrast, inference learning provides all but one feature value of a stimulus and asks the learner to predict the missing feature; see Table 1).…”

Section: Alternatives To Learning Categories By Guessing the Categorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Category Learning: Toward a Broader Explanatory Account

Kurtz

2015

Psychology of Learning and Motivation

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Learning Categories by Generating Examples

Cited by 2 publications

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Detecting anomalous features in complex stimuli: The role of structured comparison.

Detecting anomalous features in complex stimuli: The role of structured comparison.

Human Category Learning: Toward a Broader Explanatory Account

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