{"pk":26455,"title":"Performance Pressure and Comparison in Relational Category Learning","subtitle":null,"abstract":"An important objective in higher-order cognition research isto understand how relational categories are acquired andapplied. Much of the research on relational category learninghas investigated the role of within-category comparisonopportunities in category acquisition and transfer – guided bypredictions from structure mapping theory that alignmentleads to highlighting and abstraction of shared relationalstructure (Gentner, 1983). Recent research has yielded awithin-category comparison advantage under the supervisedobservational learning mode (relative to twice as many single-item trials), but not under the supervised classification mode(Patterson & Kurtz, 2015). In the present study we investigatethe role that pressure to succeed at the training task – a criticaldifference between the two learning modes – plays in theapparent ineffectiveness of learning by comparison within theclassification mode. In a 2x2 between-subjects design wecrossed two levels of performance pressure (elevated andstandard) with two presentation formats (single-item andwithin-category pairs). The main findings are: (1) asignificant interaction showing a negative impact of increasedperformance pressure for single-item learners, but not forcomparison learners; and (2) a theoretically predicted, butempirically elusive effect of comparison over single-item inthe classification mode. We conclude that: (1) performancepressure exerts a deleterious effect on relational categorylearning (in accord with findings in the attribute categoryliterature) that opportunities to compare may compensate for;and (2) pressure to perform does not appear to underlielackluster comparison + classification performance (relativeto observational learning). Further, we offer new evidence onthe role that within-category comparison plays in relationalcategory learning.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"relational categories; structural alignment;comparison; classification learning; transfer; performancepressure"}],"section":"Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4kd6x7b1","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"John","middle_name":"D.","last_name":"Patterson","name_suffix":"","institution":"Binghamton University","department":""},{"first_name":"Kenneth","middle_name":"J.","last_name":"Kurtz","name_suffix":"","institution":"Binghamton University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2016-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/26455/galley/16091/download/"}]}