The limits of multidimensional category learning

Abstract

Distributional learning is almost certainly involved in the acquisition of phonetic categories. Because speech is inherently a multidimensional signal, learning phonetic categories entails multidimensional learning. Yet previous studies of auditory category learning have shown poor maintenance of learned multidimensional categories. Two experiments explored ways to improve maintenance: by increasing the costs associated with applying a unidimensional strategy; by providing additional information about the category structures and by giving explicit instructions on how to categorize. Only with explicit instruction were categorization strategies maintained in a maintenance phase without supervision or distributional information.