PERCEPTUAL LEARNING IN PATTERN DISCRIMINATION TASKS WITH 2 AND 3 SCHEMA CATEGORIES

This research demonstrated that humans can develop the ability to distinguish between stimuli of either two or three schema families without externally administered knowledge of results or prior familiarization with the population prototypes. These demonstrations of schematic concept formation support the perceptual learning theory that differentiation of higher order variables can occur on the basis of information derived from perceiving the stimuli, and indicate the need for further investigation of the detailed conditions under which the phenomenon occurs. © 1969, Psychonomic Journals, Inc.. All rights reserved.