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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
Brief communication: the role of category structure in determining the effects of stimulus preexposure on
A J Wills1, Mark Suret, I P L McLaren
1University of Exeter, Exeter, UK. a.j.wills@ex.ac.uk
Abstract:
What are the effects of preexposure of stimuli on participants' subsequent ability to categorize them accurately? An experiment employing artificial, abstract, visual stimuli confirms that, for adult humans, the effect of preexposure is dependent upon category structure. Whether preexposure has beneficial or detrimental effects is shown to be dependent on the way category examples are generated from the category base patterns. The results are predicted by salience reduction accounts of perceptual learning but may be problematic for stimulus differentiation accounts.
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