Diagnosticity and prototypicality in category learning: a comparison of inference learning and classification learning
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Updated: Aug 29, 2026
Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning
Published on: November 2, 2012
Seth Chin-Parker1, Brian H Ross
1Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. chinpark@s.psych.uiuc.edu
Abstract:
Category knowledge allows for both the determination of category membership and an understanding of what the members of a category are like. Diagnostic information is used to determine category membership; prototypical information reflects the most likely features given category membership. Two experiments examined 2 means of category learning, classification and inference learning, in terms of sensitivity to diagnostic and prototypical information. Classification learners were highly sensitive to diagnostic features but not sensitive to nondiagnostic, but prototypical, features. Inference learners were less sensitive to the diagnostic features than were classification learners and were also sensitive to the nondiagnostic, prototypical, features. Discussion focuses on aspects of the 2 learning tasks that might lead to this differential sensitivity and the implications for learning real-world categories.
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