ALIGNMENT AND CATEGORY LEARNING

Recent research shows that similarity comparisons involve an alignment process in which features are placed into correspondence. In 6 studie s, the authors showed that alignment is involved in category learning as well. Within a category, aligned matches (feature matches occurring on the same dimension) facilitate learning more than nonaligned match es do (matches on different dimensions), although nonaligned matches s till facilitate learning relative to nonmatches. Analogously, feature matches that cross category boundaries hurt learning more if they occu r on the same versus a different dimension, and cross-category feature matches on different dimensions hurt learning relative to nonmatching features. Representational assumptions of category learning models mu st be modified to account for the differences between aligned and nona ligned feature matches.