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Development of Attention and Accuracy in Learning a Categorization Task

Being able to categorize objects as similar or different is an essential skill. An important aspect of learning to categorize is learning to attend to relevant features (i.e., features that determine category membership) and ignore irrelevant features of the to-be-categorized objects. Feature variab...

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Autores principales: Coppens, Leonora C., Postema, Christine E. S., Schüler, Anne, Scheiter, Katharina, van Gog, Tamara
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7884629/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33603696
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.544135
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author Coppens, Leonora C.
Postema, Christine E. S.
Schüler, Anne
Scheiter, Katharina
van Gog, Tamara
author_facet Coppens, Leonora C.
Postema, Christine E. S.
Schüler, Anne
Scheiter, Katharina
van Gog, Tamara
author_sort Coppens, Leonora C.
collection PubMed
description Being able to categorize objects as similar or different is an essential skill. An important aspect of learning to categorize is learning to attend to relevant features (i.e., features that determine category membership) and ignore irrelevant features of the to-be-categorized objects. Feature variability across objects of different categories is informative, because it allows inferring the rules underlying category membership. In this study, participants learned to categorize fictitious creatures (i.e., aliens). We measured attention to the aliens during learning using eye-tracking and calculated the attentional focus as the ratio of attention to relevant versus irrelevant features. As expected, participants’ categorization accuracy improved with practice; however, in contrast to our expectations, their attentional focus did not improve with practice. When computing the attentional focus, attention to the aliens’ eyes was disregarded, because while eyes attract a lot of attention, they did not vary across aliens (non-informative feature). Yet, an explorative analysis of attention to eyes suggested that participants’ attentional focus did become somewhat more efficient in that over time they learned to ignore the eyes. Results are discussed in the context of the need for instructional methods to improve attentional focus in learning to categorize.
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spelling pubmed-78846292021-02-17 Development of Attention and Accuracy in Learning a Categorization Task Coppens, Leonora C. Postema, Christine E. S. Schüler, Anne Scheiter, Katharina van Gog, Tamara Front Psychol Psychology Being able to categorize objects as similar or different is an essential skill. An important aspect of learning to categorize is learning to attend to relevant features (i.e., features that determine category membership) and ignore irrelevant features of the to-be-categorized objects. Feature variability across objects of different categories is informative, because it allows inferring the rules underlying category membership. In this study, participants learned to categorize fictitious creatures (i.e., aliens). We measured attention to the aliens during learning using eye-tracking and calculated the attentional focus as the ratio of attention to relevant versus irrelevant features. As expected, participants’ categorization accuracy improved with practice; however, in contrast to our expectations, their attentional focus did not improve with practice. When computing the attentional focus, attention to the aliens’ eyes was disregarded, because while eyes attract a lot of attention, they did not vary across aliens (non-informative feature). Yet, an explorative analysis of attention to eyes suggested that participants’ attentional focus did become somewhat more efficient in that over time they learned to ignore the eyes. Results are discussed in the context of the need for instructional methods to improve attentional focus in learning to categorize. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-02-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7884629/ /pubmed/33603696 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.544135 Text en Copyright © 2021 Coppens, Postema, Schüler, Scheiter and van Gog. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Coppens, Leonora C.
Postema, Christine E. S.
Schüler, Anne
Scheiter, Katharina
van Gog, Tamara
Development of Attention and Accuracy in Learning a Categorization Task
title Development of Attention and Accuracy in Learning a Categorization Task
title_full Development of Attention and Accuracy in Learning a Categorization Task
title_fullStr Development of Attention and Accuracy in Learning a Categorization Task
title_full_unstemmed Development of Attention and Accuracy in Learning a Categorization Task
title_short Development of Attention and Accuracy in Learning a Categorization Task
title_sort development of attention and accuracy in learning a categorization task
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7884629/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33603696
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.544135
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