The Simple Advantage in Categorical Generalization of Chinese Characters.

The Simple Advantage in Categorical Generalization of Chinese Characters Khanh-Phuong Thai (kpthai@ucla.edu) Department of Psychology, 405 Hilgard Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA Ji Y. Son (json2@calstatela.edu) Department of Psychology, 5151 State University Drive Los Angeles, CA 90032 USA Abstract Research in relational learning suggests that simple training instances may lead to better generalization than complex training instances. We examined whether this “simple advantage” extends to category learning in adults with simplified and traditional (more complex) Chinese writing scripts. In Experiment 1, participants learned Chinese characters and their English translations, performed a memorization test, and were asked to generalize their learning to the corresponding characters written in the other script. In Experiment 2, we removed the training phase and modified the tests to examine transfer based purely on perceptual similarities between simplified and traditional characters. We found the simple advantage in both experiments. Training with simplified characters produced better generalization than training with traditional characters, both when generalization relied on recognition memory and on pure perceptual similarities. This finding advances our understanding of how features of a learning opportunity interact with domain-general learning mechanisms to prepare the mind for transfer. categorization; generalization; memory; learning; similarity; features Keywords: transfer; Introduction We can remember all kinds of details about our experiences in the world but our visual systems have the capacity to ignore all kinds of details as well. Categorization relies on dual processes: attending to similarities while simultaneously ignoring differences. Efficient generalization minimizes the necessary experience with learning instances (e.g., number of learning instances needed or time spent learning) and maximizes appropriate generalization. Simple instances have been shown to engender rapid learning with selective attention to the right information for the task. Novices briefly trained with simple line drawings of diagnostic features were able to classify chicks with the accuracy of expert chicken sexers (Biederman & Shiffrar, 1987). Young children who were taught category labels with simple objects were more successful at generalizing to novel category members than when they were shown more complex learning objects (Son, Smith, & Goldstone, 2008). We refer to this asymmetry of transfer from simple versus complex training instances as the simple advantage. Most of the research demonstrating the simple advantage have examined learning and transfer of relational concepts in mathematics (Kaminski, Sloutsky, & Heckler, 2008; Sloutsky, Kaminski, & Heckler, 2005; McNeil, Uttal, Jarvin, & Sternberg, 2009) and science (Goldstone & Sakamoto, 2003; Goldstone & Son, 2005). In these relational domains, in order to generalize learning to a new situation, one must pay more attention to structural information rather than superficial details that may differ across instances. Simple learning instances can facilitate such structural extraction by limiting the extraneous details and guiding attention to the right features. Little is known, however, about whether this simple advantage can also support category generalization, particularly in adults. Although young children are better able to generalize category labels by learning from simplified exemplars (Son, Smith, & Goldstone, 2008), one might argue that simple learning instances do not benefit adults who are already experts in category learning (relative to infants). The other side of the argument suggests that the mechanisms underlying infant and adult categorization might not differ significantly (Gureckis & Love, 2004). For example, research has shown that categorization behavior in infants and adults agree on the basic level (Horton & Markman, 1980), that infants tend to extract the same prototypes and make the same kind of inferences from category knowledge that adults do (Mervis & Crisafi, 1980; Baldwin, Markman, & Melartin, 1993). One exciting possibility is that infants and adults have the same basic categorization generalization “hardware” and only differ in their level of knowledge of the domain. This has been argued for in the analogy literature (e.g., Kotovsky & Gentner, 1996). To explore this possibility, we train and test English-speaking adults in a novel domain that contains complex and simple corresponding forms: Chinese character scripts. For a number of political and historical reasons, the traditional Chinese writing system was simplified in 1949. The simplified characters have approximately 22.5% fewer strokes than the more complex traditional script (Gao & Kao, 2002). Several different simplification processes were employed; some based on Chinese history and meaning while others were straightforward perceptual simplifications. As a result, many characters and their components (recurring groups of strokes that make up the characters) took on quite different look (Harbaugh, 2003). Whether these differences between scripts affect the