Category Learning With Minimal Prior Knowledge

Kaplan, Audrey S.
Murphy, Gregory L.

¹Department of Psychology and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

²Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gregory L. Murphy, Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, 405 North Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected].

This study was supported by a National Science Foundation Fellowship to Audrey S. Kaplan and by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH41704. We thank Brian Ross, Edward Shoben, and the reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article as well as Hayley Davison for help in testing subjects.

Received Date: April 14, 1997; Revised Date: February 4, 2000; Accepted Date: February 4, 2000

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 26(4):p 829-846, July 2000.

In 6 experiments, the authors examined the use of prior knowledge in category learning. Previous studies of the effects of knowledge on category learning have used categories in which knowledge was related to all of the category's features. However, people's knowledge of real-world categories often consists of many “rote” features that are not related to their prior knowledge. Five experiments found that even minimal prior knowledge (1 knowledge-relevant feature and 5 rote features per exemplar) can facilitate category learning. Posttests revealed that although the knowledge aided learning, subjects also acquired the rote features that were not related to knowledge, contradicting predictions of an attentional explanation of the knowledge effect. The results of Experiment 6 suggested that subjects attempt to link even rote features to their knowledge.