Exploring the role of verbal category labels in flexible cognition

Exploring the Role of Verbal Category Labels in Flexible Cognition Jackson Tolins (jtolins@ucsc.edu) Department of Psychology, 1156 High St. Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA Eliana Colunga (colunga@psych.colorado.edu) Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, 345 UCB Boulder, CO 80309 USA Abstract Research under the paradigm of the label feedback hypothesis has proposed a causal role for verbal labels in the online learning and processing of categories. Labeled categories are learned faster, and are subsequently more robust. The present study extends this research paradigm by considering the relationship between verbal labels and flexible categorization. Flexibility is a key trait of human cognition, and flexible categorization is important in a number of tasks. Participants learned to categorize ‘friendly’ and ‘unfriendly’ aliens either with or without names, followed by a transfer task. While selective attention to a particular dimension slowed relearning, no effect of label was found for either category learning or relearning with one exception; labels facilitated flexibility when selective attention was not involved in the transfer. The inability to replicate effects of verbal labels in category learning using similar methodologies raises interesting theoretical issues, questioning the extent to which this relationship applies. Keywords: Categorization; Label Feedback Hypothesis; Flexible Cognition; Selective Attention Introduction Language, along with use in communication, provides a symbolic system of representation through which a speaker contemplates the world around them. The emergence of the capacity for symbolic representation transformed human cognition (Deacon, 1997; DeLoache, 2004), permitting abstract thought and making possible cultural transmission of knowledge. Yet the relationship between language and other cognitive processes is still controversial. For many who view language as a distinct mental module (Gleitman & Papafragou, 2005; Pinker, 1995), language is merely a formal medium that is used to describe mental representations, while remaining independent of the concepts they express (Li & Gleitman, 2002). Recent work in understanding the relationship between language and thought has provided evidence against this disassociation. Instead, it has been suggested that language is best understood as built upon domain general cognitive processes, and thus potentially in a mutually transformative relationship with these processes (Bowerman & Choi, 2001; Gumperz & Levinson, 1996). With habitual use of the specific set of conceptual symbolic representations afforded by a language, an individual may be biased towards these representations in problem-solving and other cognitive tasks. How a language may accomplish this is not well understood. One possibility is that language reduces the ability to flexibly adjust categories outside the structure provided for by the words of a particular language. As such, it is important to consider the influence of language on the ability to dynamically activate and modify the cognitive process of categorization in response to changing task demands. The ability to think and act adaptively, while not a uniquely human trait, is a mental capacity uniquely well developed in human cognition and intelligent behavior (Deak, 2003). For the purposes of the current study, flexible cognition will be defined as a property of the cognitive system, rather than a specific mechanism or process (Deak, 2003; Ionescu, 2012). This definition allows for the consideration of flexible cognition in the interaction of interest; that between categorization and language, specifically verbal labels. Recent work lead by Gary Lupyan and colleagues on the role of labels in categorization has demonstrated a special status afforded to verbal labels (see e.g. Lupyan, Rakison, & McClelland, 2007; Lupyan & Thompson-Schill, 2011). Verbal labels participate in the learning of categories, facilitating learning, creating mental categories that are more robust than when the categories are learned without words (Lupyan, Rakison, & McClelland, 2007), and encouraging selective attention (Brojde, Porter, & Colunga, 2011). However, no study has looked directly at the influence of verbal labels on the perceptual and attentional processes that underlie flexibility after learning. Similarly, while a number of studies have looked at how language aides in an individual’s ability to flexibly adjust the level of categorization, or switch from taxonomic to thematic (Blaye, Bernard-Peyron, Paour, & Bonthoux, 2006), no previous research has investigated how individuals flexibly adjust their categorization strategies in regards to the same domain, on the same level. The present investigation seeks to illuminate further the relationship between verbal labels and the cognitive processes underlying categorization. In developing an understanding of the role that verbal labels play in the construction and maintenance of categories, we further our understanding of the relationship between language and the domain general cognitive processes, such as categorization, upon which language is built.