TY - JOUR
T1 - Interleaving Benefits the Learning of Complex Perceptual Categories
T2 - Evidence Against the Discriminative-Contrast Hypothesis
AU - Yan, Veronica X.
AU - Sana, Faria
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright 2019 International Association for Cognitive Education and Psychology.
PY - 2019/1/1
Y1 - 2019/1/1
N2 - Interleaving examples of to-be-learned categories, rather than blocking examples by category, frequently enhances category induction. The presently dominant theory is that interleaving promotes discriminative-contrast, and suggests that category similarity structure modulates this interleaving benefit: that blocking should benefit learning when within-category similarity is low and that interleaving should benefit learning when between-category similarity is low. We test whether predictions of this hypothesis hold when generalized to real, complex categories artists' painting styles. Specifically, we test two predictions: (a) that within- and between-category structure should modulate the interleaving benefit (Exp 1a and 1b) and (b) that deliberately juxtaposing similar examples by different artists to highlight their key differences should improve learning (Exp 2a and 2b). We did not, however, find evidence that the discriminative-contrast hypothesis explains the interleaving benefit for complex, perceptual categories.
AB - Interleaving examples of to-be-learned categories, rather than blocking examples by category, frequently enhances category induction. The presently dominant theory is that interleaving promotes discriminative-contrast, and suggests that category similarity structure modulates this interleaving benefit: that blocking should benefit learning when within-category similarity is low and that interleaving should benefit learning when between-category similarity is low. We test whether predictions of this hypothesis hold when generalized to real, complex categories artists' painting styles. Specifically, we test two predictions: (a) that within- and between-category structure should modulate the interleaving benefit (Exp 1a and 1b) and (b) that deliberately juxtaposing similar examples by different artists to highlight their key differences should improve learning (Exp 2a and 2b). We did not, however, find evidence that the discriminative-contrast hypothesis explains the interleaving benefit for complex, perceptual categories.
KW - category induction
KW - discriminative contrast
KW - interleaving
KW - learning
KW - spacing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85075657445&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1891/1945-8959.18.1.35
DO - 10.1891/1945-8959.18.1.35
M3 - Journal Article
AN - SCOPUS:85075657445
SN - 1945-8959
VL - 18
SP - 35
EP - 51
JO - Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology
JF - Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology
IS - 1
ER -