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People spontaneously make connections between superficiallydistinct domains through relational similarity, but thisspontaneous transfer has yet to be demonstrated across distinctclassification tasks. A related issue is that the acquisition of acategory may affect recognition memory for category-consistent items. Participants in the Category Learningcondition completed an initial classification task. The CategoryLearning and Baseline conditions each received category-consistent items to study followed by a recognition test. Bothgroups completed a final classification task in a novel domainabiding by the same underlying category structures as theinitial classification task. The Category Learning groupshowed 1) increased false alarms during the recognition testand 2) higher accuracy in the final classification task (whentold the classification phases were unrelated). This suggeststhat classification learning led to a schematization of thecategory-defining concept (evidenced by increased falsealarms), which supported spontaneous transfer of relationalconcepts across distinct classification tasks.

We investigated whether the presence of exception items canimpede effects of category compression (within-category itemsappearing more similar) in classification learning. Wehypothesized that the distinct representations afforded toexceptions may cause the target category to appear lesscohesive, thereby reducing the likelihood of compressionoccurring. Across two experiments, participants engaged inclassification learning without exceptions, with an easyexception, or with a difficult exception. Pairwise similarityratings for all items were collected before and after learning toindex compression. Results from Experiment 1 suggest thatdifficult exceptions can impede compression for the contrastcategory when situated within its cluster, while results fromExperiment 2 suggest that both kinds of exceptions can impaircompression of standard items in a target category relative tothe No Exception control. We also observed surprisingevidence of a novel between-category compression effect thatwas observed with the category structure developed for theseexperiments.

Analogical comparison of 2 provided cases promotes spontaneous analogical transfer by encouraging a more abstract representation of a target principle. This is widely understood as a process of schema abstraction that aids retrieval from memory in the absence of superficial similarity. The category status hypothesis states that if knowledge about a target principle is represented as a relational category, it is easier to activate as a result of categorizing (as opposed to cue-based reminding). To investigate these 2 pathways to spontaneous transfer (schema retrieval vs. categorization), participants were assigned to different study conditions: (a) standard comparison of 2 analogs; (b) standard comparison followed by a second comparison of 2 new analogs; or (c) a guided Category-building task based on a foundation of sequential summarization with additional categorization supports. Experiment 1 showed improved spontaneous transfer in the Category-building task relative to Single-comparison--the gold standard for encouraging spontaneous transfer. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the Category-building task led to more frequent spontaneous structure-based retrieval than either comparison-based task. This suggests that the transfer improvements observed in Experiment 1 are attributable to the Category-building task making superficially dissimilar prior knowledge more accessible. Experiments 3a and 3b tested alternative explanations of this finding and provided evidence that the effectiveness of the Category-building task arises from encouraging the construal of a target principle as a relational category. These findings support categorization as a critical factor in explaining successful spontaneous analogical retrieval and toward instructional approaches that promote portable rather than inert knowledge.

In accord with structural alignment theory, same-category comparison opportunities within a classification learning task should promote relational category acquisition. However, a straightforward merging of the classification paradigm with copresentation of same-category item pairs does not yield an advantage relative to an equal number of single-item exposures. In 3 experiments, we explore the hypothesis that the traditional classification learning mode (guess-and-correct) and comparison have a previously unforeseen incompatibility. In Experiment 1, we test this hypothesis by contrasting classification with supervised observational learning (passive study of labeled examples) under 3 presentation formats: same-category pairs, mixed pairs, and single-item. We find an observational advantage with same-category pairs and produce the elusive advantage over single-item exposures. In Experiment 2, we assess the generality of the learning mode effect by testing both same- and different-category comparison. The observational advantage replicates and extends to different-category comparison--although, we do not find a significant difference between the 2 types of comparison. In Experiment 3, relative to the classification mode, we find enhanced performance in an intermediate learning mode between classification and observation in which participants are instructed to make a covert category guess (without making an actual response) before seeing the correct category label. Implications and interpretations--including our interpretation that the performance emphasis inherent in classification learning undermines the benefits that arise from comparison opportunities--are discussed.

A fundamental goal in the study of human cognition is to understand the transfer of knowledge. This goes hand-in-hand with the translational goal of promoting such transfer via instructional techniques. Despite a rich history of research using the analogical problem-solving paradigm, no study activity has been found to produce a robust rate of successful spontaneous transfer--even when the test is immediate. We propose the category status hypothesis as an explanation of the difficulty of transfer and as motivation for a novel approach to promoting transfer. We report a set of experiments evaluating a category construction technique based on a sorting task. In Experiment 1a, we found category construction to be significantly more effective than the "gold standard" of schema abstraction through comparison of 2 analogous cases. In Experiment 1b, we explored a variation of the category construction technique that did not reliably differ in effectiveness from comparison-based schema abstraction--we also verified that both study tasks were superior to a baseline task of separate summarization of 2 cases. In Experiment 2, we conducted a replication of the initial design with higher power and confirmed the significant advantage for category construction over schema abstraction via comparison. In Experiment 3, we compared category construction to an information-consistent reading comprehension control to evaluate competing interpretations of the category construction advantage found in Experiments 1 and 2. We discuss theoretical and applied implications of these findings.

A plurality of the categories we hold exhibit familyresemblance (FR; i.e., many characteristic but few definingfeatures), suggesting FR may occupy a central role in humancategory formation. However, research in unsupervisedlearning has shown that when people are asked to sort anarray of novel items into categories, they ubiquitously use aunidimensional (UNI) rule – despite the availability of a FRsolution. This work suggests that, perhaps, FR similarity isnot a core tendency in category formation. Here, we questionwhether the UNI bias is a result of the sorting paradigm.Specifically, we speculate the paradigm conflates twocomponents vital for category formation: production andevaluation. Across three experiments we show that whenevaluation is separated from generation – by using a novelforced-choice task that pits different category organizationalschemes against one another – people exhibit a FR over UNIpreference. The implications of these results are discussed.

Research on semi-supervised category learning has beensparse despite its representativeness of naturalistic categorylearning and potential applications. Most of the semi-supervised literature to date has focused on establishing thephenomenon. These efforts have produced mixed results andhave explored a relatively limited set of learningcircumstances. In the current work, we contribute a novelinvestigation of semi-supervised learning by extending theparadigm to relational category learning and evaluating therole that item similarity plays in the effectiveness ofunsupervised learning opportunities. Our results show first-ever evidence of semi-supervised learning in the induction ofrelational categories and, further, that the similarity betweensupervised and unsupervised examples critically dictateswhether benefits of unsupervised exposures accrue. Weconclude with implications and future directions.

A key goal in both education and higher-order cognitionresearch is to understand how relational concepts are bestlearned. In the current work, we present a novel approach forlearning complex relational categories – a low-support,interactive discovery interface. The platform, which allowslearners to make modifications to exemplars and see thecorresponding effects on membership, holds the potential toaugment relational learning by facilitating self-directed,alignably-different comparisons that explore what the learnerdoes not yet understand. We compared interactive learning to anidentification learning task. Participants were assessed on theirability to generalize category knowledge to novel exemplarsfrom the same domain. Although identification learners wereprovided with seven times as many positive examples of thecategory during training, interactive learners demonstratedenhanced generalization accuracy and knowledge of specificmembership constraints. Moreover, the data suggest thatidentification learners tended to overgeneralize categoryknowledge to non-members – a problem that interactive learnersexhibited to a significantly lesser degree. Overall, the resultsshow interactive training to be a powerful tool forsupplementing relational category learning, with particularutility for refining category knowledge. We conclude withimplications of these findings and promising future directions.

Analogical comparison promotes spontaneous transfer byencouraging a more abstract representation that may be easierto retrieve. The category status hypothesis states that: ifknowledge is represented as a relational category, it is easierto activate as a result of categorizing (as opposed to cue-basedreminding). To investigate these two pathways to analogicaltransfer, participants were assigned to different studyconditions: 1) standard comparison of two analogs; 2)standard comparison followed by a second comparison of twonew analogs; or 3) a guided category-building task based onsequential summarization. Category-building showed areliably higher rate of spontaneous transfer during ananalogical problem solving task than standard comparison(numerically higher than double-comparison). Anotherexperiment measured spontaneous remindings to cues on thebasis of matching structure. Category-building showed areliable advantage over both comparison conditions. Thissupports categorization as a novel pathway to spontaneoustransfer by enhancing retrieval of structurally similarinformation.

An important objective in higher-order cognition research isto understand how relational categories are acquired andapplied. Much of the research on relational category learninghas investigated the role of within-category comparisonopportunities in category acquisition and transfer – guided bypredictions from structure mapping theory that alignmentleads to highlighting and abstraction of shared relationalstructure (Gentner, 1983). Recent research has yielded awithin-category comparison advantage under the supervisedobservational learning mode (relative to twice as many single-item trials), but not under the supervised classification mode(Patterson & Kurtz, 2015). In the present study we investigatethe role that pressure to succeed at the training task – a criticaldifference between the two learning modes – plays in theapparent ineffectiveness of learning by comparison within theclassification mode. In a 2x2 between-subjects design wecrossed two levels of performance pressure (elevated andstandard) with two presentation formats (single-item andwithin-category pairs). The main findings are: (1) asignificant interaction showing a negative impact of increasedperformance pressure for single-item learners, but not forcomparison learners; and (2) a theoretically predicted, butempirically elusive effect of comparison over single-item inthe classification mode. We conclude that: (1) performancepressure exerts a deleterious effect on relational categorylearning (in accord with findings in the attribute categoryliterature) that opportunities to compare may compensate for;and (2) pressure to perform does not appear to underlielackluster comparison + classification performance (relativeto observational learning). Further, we offer new evidence onthe role that within-category comparison plays in relationalcategory learning.

Theoretical and empirical work in the field of classificationlearning is centered on a ‘reference point’ view, where learn-ers are thought to represent categories in terms of stored pointsin psychological space (e.g., prototypes, exemplars, clusters).Reference point representations fully specify how regions ofpsychological space are associated with class labels, but theydo not contain information about how features relate to oneanother (within- class or otherwise). We present a novel exper-iment suggesting human learners acquire knowledge of within-class feature correlations and use this knowledge during gen-eralization. Our methods conform strictly to the traditional ar-tificial classification learning paradigm, and our results can-not be explained by any prominent reference point model (i.e.,GCM, ALCOVE). An alternative to the reference point frame-work (DIVA) provides a strong account of the observed perfor-mance. We additionally describe preliminary work on a noveldiscriminative clustering model that also explains our results.

This research introduces the switch task, a novel learning modethat fits with calls for a broader explanatory account of hu-man category learning (Kurtz, 2015; Markman & Ross, 2003;Murphy, 2002). Learning with the switch task is a processof turning each presented exemplar into a member of anotherdesignated category. This paper presents the switch task to fur-ther explore the contingencies between learning goals, learn-ing modes, outcomes, and category representations. The pro-cess of successfully transforming exemplars into members of atarget category requires generative knowledge such as within-category feature correspondences – similar to inference learn-ing. Given that the ability to switch items between categoriesnicely encapsulates category knowledge, how does this relateto more familiar tasks like inferring features and classifyingexemplars? To address this question we present an empiri-cal investigation of this new task, side-by-side with the well-established alternative of classification learning. The resultsshow that the category knowledge acquired through switchlearning shares similarities with inference learning and pro-vides insight into the processes at work. The implications ofthis research, particularly the distinctions between this learn-ing mode and well-known alternatives, are discussed.

The perceived soundness of an analogy is influenced by shared relational structure between the analogs with higher-order relational (HOR) structure being the primary determinant (Gentner, Rattermann, & Forbus, 1993). We conducted areplication and extension to investigate whether the same pattern holds when deciding whether to extend a relational categorylabel from a base example to a target. Participants were assigned to judge either category extension or analogical soundness(using a more direct version of the original measure) across four targets that shared HOR structure, surface similarity, neither, orboth (literal similarity) with the base passage. We found that shared HOR structure led to a higher likelihood of both extendingthe category label and judging the analogy to be good. No effect of surface similarity was found. These results suggest thatthe generalization of relational categories follows the same principles of structure-mapping theory that are seen in analogicalprocessing.

The idea that characteristics acquired by an organism during its lifetime can be inherited by offspring and result in evolution is a substantial impediment to student understanding of evolution. In the current study, we performed a preliminary examination of how acquiring physical changes in a question prompt may differentially cue intuitive and scientific justifications of inheritance and evolution and how this varies based on how student learned the concept. Middle school students in a suburban northeastern district (N = 314) either learned about evolutionary change with a category construction task (with different levels of feedback support) or completed a worksheet. Three days later students responded to two free response scenarios (one where a physical change is acquired). Responses were coded based on student justifications for either science accuracy or intuitive nature. Specific reasons were coded by justification type with high inter-rater agreement (k > 0.93). Results showed that students were more likely to apply intuitive reasoning when a physical change was acquired (50%) than if the change was behavioral in nature (16%). Additionally, students who completed the category construction task provided significantly more scientifically accurate justifications about inheritance (M = 1.12) than control students (M = 0.47), and significantly less intuitive justifications (M = 0.67) than control (M = 1.13). Finally, category construction produced the most scientific reasoning when feedback was provided. Taken together, these results suggest that intuitive reasoning is differentially applied based on physical organismal changes, intuitive reasoning is less frequent when learning via category construction, and the category construction task is more effective for this population with the inclusion of feedback.

Research in category learning has been dominated by a‘reference point’ view in which items are classified based onattention-weighted similarity to reference points (e.g.,prototypes, exemplars, clusters) in a multidimensional space.Although much work has attempted to distinguish betweenparticular types of reference point models, they share a coredesign principle that items will be classified as belonging tothe category of the most proximal reference point(s). In thispaper, we present an original experiment challenging thisdistance assumption. After classification training on amodified XOR category structure, we find that many learnersgeneralize their category knowledge to novel exemplars in amanner that violates the distance assumption. This pattern ofperformance reveals a fundamental limitation in the referencepoint framework and suggests that stimulus generalization isnot a reliable foundation for explaining human categorylearning.

An important goal in the study of higher-order cognition is tounderstand how relational categories are acquired andapplied. Previous work has explored the potential of withincategorycomparison opportunities to promote relationalcategory learning and transfer. This follows from predictionsof structure mapping theory (Gentner, 1983, 2003) thatalignment leads to highlighting and abstraction of commonrelational structure. However, a straightforward merging oftraditional classification learning with comparison (i.e., trialspresenting two same-category items) has not been effective.We explore the hypothesis that classification and comparisonhave an unforeseen incompatibility. In a 3x2 betweensubjectsdesign we tested three presentation conditions(unconstrained item pairs, category-matched items pairs,single items) in two supervised category learning modes:classification and observation. The major finding is aninteraction driven by highly accurate categorization for theobservational learners with same-category pairs. Theintroduction of the observational mode yielded the predicted,but elusive result of an advantage for within-category pairsover twice as many single-item trials. We conclude thatwithin-category comparison can be an effective means topromote relational category learning and discuss the apparentimpediment of the guess-and-correct cycle

Argument-based interventions in science education have largely been motivated by the perspective that students lack knowledge of argument. Recent studies, however, suggest that contextual factors influence students' argument quality. The authors hypothesize that a key limiting factor lies in students' abilities to recognize when to employ knowledge related to argumentative reasoning. Students hold knowledge that can remain inert if the context fails to trigger access. The article reports on two experiments exploring the influence of context on recognition of argumentative reasoning. Each experiment used performance on a categorization task as the dependent variable. The first experiment (E1) tested the effect of targeted cues on participants' identification of fallacious reasoning patterns. The second experiment (E2) examined the role of scenario context. E1 revealed a significant advantage in promoting detection of fallacious reasoning patterns when targeted cues were present. E2 suggests that the broad context of scenarios also influences reasoning patterns. These findings reveal that lack of knowledge of argument may not be the principal constraint on students' argument abilities. Rather, contextual details can have a significant influence on activation of knowledge bases that contribute to argumentative reasoning. Instructional implications are discussed.

Tests of the influence of categorization and comparison on the representations of relational categories show: 1) a category-based similarity effect, and 2) an indirect role of comparison via facilitated learning with pairwise presentation.