on active information seeking in human category learning

Abstract

Categorization plays a very important role in human cognition. Categorization efficiently encodes information in myriad feature dimensions. These are automatic, high-speed cognitive processes that enable complex information processing. In previous research on category learning, learning tasks were strictly determined by the experimenter – participants usually do not have been able to seek for a specific set of features during learning. In this study, we used a task in which learners can freely choose what kind of information they want to obtain and examined what kind of information-seeking behaviors learners perform during active category learning.