Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Meng Cao

Date

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Philip Pavlik Jr.

Committee Member

Andrew M. Olney

Committee Member

Xiangen Hu

Committee Member

Paulo Carvalho

Abstract

Previous research in category learning has demonstrated the benefits of both interleaving and blocking under some circumstances. The interleaved study has been shown to enhance generalization for categories with high within- and between-category similarity, blocked presentation has demonstrated efficacy in promoting generalization for categories with low within- and between-category similarity when learning artificial stimuli (Carvalho & Goldstone, 2014a). The incorporation of spacing into the learning sequence could further facilitate category learning. However, whether an optimal intermediate balance between blocking and interleaving exists, and how these strategies interact with spacing when learning natural stimuli, remains unexplored. In this study, spacing and similarity were between-subject variables and block size acted as the within-subject variable. We investigated the influences of category similarity, spacing, and block size on naturalistic bird category learning. The results revealed that interleaving is superior to blocking, regardless of the similarity of the stimuli. An increase in block size (from 1, 2, 4, 8 to 16) corresponded to a decline in posttest performance, and a mini block size of 2 was as effective but not better than pure interleaving (block size of 1). Interestingly, similarity yielded a reversed pattern in studied and novel items during the posttest: low similarity stimuli exhibited higher accuracy on studied items but lower accuracy on novel items, whereas high similarity stimuli displayed lower accuracy on studied items but higher accuracy on new items. The introduction of spacing into the sequence emerged as a beneficial factor for category learning. Overall, these findings provide valuable insights for instructors seeking to design effective training regimens for category learning.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Open Access

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