Automatic Category Search and Its Transfer: Automatic Process Semantic Filtering

摘要

When subjects receive extended practice searching for words from a consistently mapped (CM) category, search becomes substantially faster, more accurate, and less effortful. The present experiments examine the extent to which category search practice effects are semantically based. Experiment 1a examined improvements in reaction time in detecting words from a category as a function of the number of exemplars (4-12) in the category. All conditions showed improvement, but there was no effect of the number of exemplars. Experiment 1b examined the extent to which training on a subset of exemplars transferred to untrained members of the category. Results showed substantial positive transfer (60 to 92%) to untrained exemplars from the trained category and the transfer was better if there were more exemplars in the training set. Experiment 2a replicated previous results showing that practice reduces resource sensitivity in consistently mapped (CM) category search but does not benefit variably mapped (VM) category search. Experiment 2b examined whether untrained exemplars of a CM trained category would be detected on first presentation when subjects were engaged in a high workload VM digit search task. Untrained exemplars of the CM category were detected on first presentation showing substantial positive transfer (70%).