Costs and benefits of automatization in category learning of ill-defined rules

Learning ill-defined categories (such as the structure of Medin & Schaffer, 1978) involves multiple learning systems and different corresponding category representations, which are difficult to detect. Application of latent Markov analysis allows detection and investigation of such multiple latent category representations in a statistically robust way, isolating low performers and quantifying shifts between latent strategies. We reanalyzed data from three experiments presented in Johansen and Palmeri (2002), which comprised prolonged training of ill-defined categories, with the aim of studying the changing interactions between underlying learning systems. Our results broadly confirm the original conclusion that, in most participants, learning involved a shift from a rule-based to an exemplar-based strategy. Separate analyses of latent strategies revealed that (a) shifts from a rule-based to an exemplar-based strategy resulted in an initial decrease of speed and an increase of accuracy; (b) exemplar-based strategies followed a power law of learning, indicating automatization once an exemplar-based strategy was used; (c) rule-based strategies changed from using pure rules to rules-plus-exceptions, which appeared as a dual processes as indicated by the accuracy and response-time profiles. Results suggest an additional pathway of learning ill-defined categories, namely involving a shift from a simple rule to a complex rule after which this complex rule is automatized as an exemplar-based strategy.