Order of acquisition in learning perceptual categories: A laboratory analogue of the age-of-acquisition effect?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Order of acquisition in learning perceptual categories: A laboratory analogue of the age-of-acquisition effect?

AU - Stewart, Neil

AU - Ellis, Andrew W.

PY - 2008/2

Y1 - 2008/2

N2 - In the age-of-acquisition (AoA) effect, an advantage for recognition and production is found for items learned early in life, as compared with items learned later. In this laboratory analogue, participants learned to categorize novel random checkerboard stimuli. Some stimuli were presented from the onset of training; others were introduced later. At test, when early and late stimuli had equal cumulative frequency, early stimuli were classified significantly more quickly. Because stimuli were randomly assigned to be introduced either early or late, we can conclude that early stimuli were categorized more quickly because of their order of acquisition. This finding suggests that age- or order-of-acquisition effects are a general property of any learning system.

AB - In the age-of-acquisition (AoA) effect, an advantage for recognition and production is found for items learned early in life, as compared with items learned later. In this laboratory analogue, participants learned to categorize novel random checkerboard stimuli. Some stimuli were presented from the onset of training; others were introduced later. At test, when early and late stimuli had equal cumulative frequency, early stimuli were classified significantly more quickly. Because stimuli were randomly assigned to be introduced either early or late, we can conclude that early stimuli were categorized more quickly because of their order of acquisition. This finding suggests that age- or order-of-acquisition effects are a general property of any learning system.

KW - CUMULATIVE-FREQUENCY HYPOTHESIS

KW - PROCESSING TASKS

KW - WORD-FREQUENCY

KW - REAL AGE

KW - MODEL

KW - IDENTIFICATION

KW - ACCURACY

KW - NETWORKS

KW - ACCOUNT

KW - LINUX

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=50949092176&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3758/PBR.15.1.70

DO - 10.3758/PBR.15.1.70

M3 - Article

SN - 1069-9384

VL - 15

SP - 70

EP - 74

JO - Psychonomic Bulletin and Review

JF - Psychonomic Bulletin and Review

IS - 1

ER -