Cognitive Science Program, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada.
Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada.
PLoS One. 2021 Dec 16;16(12):e0259517. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259517. eCollection 2021.
Feedback is essential for many kinds of learning, but the cognitive processes involved in learning from feedback are unclear. Models of category learning incorporate selective attention to stimulus features while generating a response, but during the feedback phase of an experiment, it is assumed that participants receive complete information about stimulus features as well as the correct category. The present work looks at eye tracking data from six category learning datasets covering a variety of category complexities and types. We find that selective attention to task-relevant information is pervasive throughout feedback processing, suggesting a role for selective attention in memory encoding of category exemplars. We also find that error trials elicit additional stimulus processing during the feedback phase. Finally, our data reveal that participants increasingly skip the processing of feedback altogether. At the broadest level, these three findings reveal that selective attention is ubiquitous throughout the entire category learning task, functioning to emphasize the importance of certain stimulus features, the helpfulness of extra stimulus encoding during times of uncertainty, and the superfluousness of feedback once one has learned the task. We discuss the implications of our findings for modelling efforts in category learning from the perspective of researchers trying to capture the full dynamic interaction of selective attention and learning, as well as for researchers focused on other issues, such as category representation, whose work only requires simplifications that do a reasonable job of capturing learning.
反馈对于许多类型的学习都很重要，但从反馈中学习所涉及的认知过程还不清楚。类别学习模型在生成响应的同时纳入了对刺激特征的选择性注意，但在实验的反馈阶段，假设参与者会收到关于刺激特征以及正确类别的确切信息。本研究着眼于涵盖各种类别复杂性和类型的六个类别学习数据集的眼动追踪数据。我们发现，对任务相关信息的选择性注意在整个反馈处理过程中都很普遍，这表明选择性注意在类别示例的记忆编码中起作用。我们还发现，错误试验在反馈阶段会引发额外的刺激处理。最后，我们的数据表明，参与者越来越多地完全跳过反馈处理。从最广泛的角度来看，这三个发现揭示了选择性注意在整个类别学习任务中无处不在，其功能是强调某些刺激特征的重要性、在不确定时期额外刺激编码的有用性，以及在任务学习后反馈的多余性。我们从试图捕捉选择性注意和学习的全部动态交互的研究人员的角度讨论了我们的发现对类别学习建模工作的意义，以及对专注于其他问题（如类别表示）的研究人员的意义，他们的工作只需要进行合理的简化即可捕捉到学习。
