You can sweat the small stuff, too: Abstraction subordinates perceptual salience to the larger goal in a category learning paradigm

David A. Bosch, Yaacov Trope, Gregory Murphy

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Three experiments investigated the role of conceptual abstraction in category learning. We found that people in a low-level mindset over-weighted global features in classifying novel exemplars whereas those in a high-level mindset did not (Experiments 1 and 3). The effect was on the learning process, independent of perceptual response preference (Experiment 3) and occurred despite evidence of perceptual global dominance for all groups during learning (Experiments 2 and 3). We conclude that abstraction can subordinate perceptual salience to the larger goal, integrating discrete encounters into a comprehensive representation of the underlying structure.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2018
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages148-153
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9780991196784
StatePublished - 2018
Event40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Changing Minds, CogSci 2018 - Madison, United States
Duration: Jul 25 2018Jul 28 2018

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2018

Conference

Conference40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Changing Minds, CogSci 2018
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityMadison
Period7/25/187/28/18

Keywords

  • Abstraction
  • Category Learning
  • Configural processing
  • Global precedence
  • Holistic primacy

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

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