Jove
Visualize
Contact Us

Related Experiment Videos

Consistent contrast and correlation in free sorting.

Dorrit Billman1, Jim Davies

  • 1Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. billman@psych.stanford.edu

The American Journal of Psychology
|November 1, 2005
PubMed
Summary

People are sensitive to correlational structure when learning categories, preferring consistent groupings that reflect relationships in data, even with complex stimuli. This challenges previous findings of 1D sorting in unsupervised learning tasks.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Improving the diagnostic performance of troponin assays for acute myocardial infarction in renal impairment.

Heart (British Cardiac Society)·2026
Same author

Using ontologies to facilitate healthcare process mining and analysis.

Journal of intelligent information systems·2026
Same author

Characterisation of People Living With Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection in England and Stratification by HBsAg Levels: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Journal of viral hepatitis·2025
Same author

Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) Treatment Eligibility in the UK: Retrospective Longitudinal Cohort Data to Explore the Impact of Changes in Clinical Guidelines.

Journal of viral hepatitis·2025
Same author

Supporting cancer research on real-world data: extracting colorectal cancer status and explicitly written TNM stages from free-text imaging and histopathology reports.

BMJ health & care informatics·2025
Same author

External validation of the COLOFIT colorectal cancer risk prediction model in the Oxford-FIT dataset: the importance of population characteristics and clinically relevant evaluation metrics.

BMC medicine·2025
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Machine Learning
  • Concept Formation

Background:

  • Previous concept formation research indicated participants were insensitive to correlational structure in stimuli.
  • Simpler stimulus structures in prior studies led to "ID sorts" based on single attributes.
  • This study explores unsupervised learning with more complex, multiattribute stimuli.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate free sorting behavior with multiattribute stimuli.
  • To determine if participants utilize correlational structure in unsupervised learning.
  • To examine the influence of stimulus complexity and hierarchical structure on sorting strategies.

Main Methods:

  • Two experiments using free sorting tasks with multiattribute drawings of alien animals.
  • Stimuli varied in complexity and hierarchical structure across experiments.
  • Participant sorting strategies were analyzed to identify patterns and preferences.

Main Results:

  • Participants employed diverse sorting strategies but favored those reflecting correlational structure when consistent.
  • Hierarchically structured stimuli revealed a preference for consistent contrasting categories over single-attribute (1D) sorting.
  • Correlational sorts were more probable when the resulting category contrasts were consistent.

Conclusions:

  • Human categorization in free sorting tasks is complex, influenced by multiple biases.
  • Participants demonstrate sensitivity to both consistency and correlational structure in category formation.
  • Conflicting biases can shape the emergent category systems created by individuals.

Related Experiment Videos