Markman, A.B., & Maddox, W.T.
Classification of exemplars with single and
multiple feature manifestations: The effects of relevant dimension
variation and category structure
Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition Volume 29, Number 1, pp. 107-117
(2003)
[Download a PDF
version of this paper.]
Most classification research focuses on cases where each abstract feature has the same surface manifestation whenever it is presented. A few studies demonstrated that people have difficulty learning to classify when each abstract feature has multiple surface manifestations. These studies created multiple manifestations by varying aspects of the stimuli that were irrelevant to the abstract feature dimension. The present study extends this research to cases in which multiple manifestations were created by varying aspects of the stimuli that were relevant to the abstract feature dimension. In line with previous research, people given categories with the family resemblance category structure often used in psychology experiments had difficulty learning to classify when multiple manifestations were present, even though the variation was relevant. This effect was reversed when a family resemblance structure with non-diagnostic values was used. The implications of this work for models of classification are discussed.