1. J.P. Minda, A.S. Desroaches, B.A. Church
Learning Rule-Decribed and Non-Rule-Described Categories: A Comparison of Children and Adults
J.P. Minda, A.S. Desroaches, B.A. Church
Competitions of Verbal and Implicit Systems(COVIS)
Explicit/Verbal System of Category learning is default
Procedural system takes over under cognitive load or when explicit rules are not effective
Uses a cohort cross sectional(ages 3, 5, 8, and adult) experiment to examine age differences
Children and adults perform similarly when differentiating categories that follow one rule or involve ‘family resemblance’
Adults perform better when multiple rules differentiate categories
Reduction in adult performance under verbal load, but not non-verbal load
Improvement in children’s performance on two-rule categories with training
Improvement in adult performance on ‘family resemblance’ with training
Strengths:
Clear methodology and relation to theory
Repeated studies support the central finding
Theory provides clear developmental implications
Weaknesses:
Cohort cross sectional
Potentially discrepant finding- adults and ‘family resemblance’
Partial check on strategy differences