The Effects of Feature-Label-Order and Their Implications for Symbolic Learning

Symbols enable people to organize and communicate about the world. However, the ways in which symbolic knowledge is learned and then represented in the mind are poorly understood. We present a formal analysis of symbolic learning--in particular, word learning--in terms of prediction and cue competition, and we consider two possible ways in which symbols might be learned: by learning to predict a label from the features of objects and events in the world, and by learning to predict features from a label. This analysis predicts significant differences in symbolic learning depending on the sequencing of objects and labels. We report a computational simulation and two human experiments that confirm these differences, revealing the existence of Feature-Label-Ordering effects in learning. Discrimination learning is facilitated when objects predict labels, but not when labels predict objects. Our results and analysis suggest that the semantic categories people use to understand and communica...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: COGSCI
• Authors: Michael Ramscar, Daniel Yarlett, Melody Dye, Katie Denny, Kirsten Thorpe
• Keywords: COGSCI 2010, Formal Analysis, Labels, Symbolic Knowledge