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Do Americans Have a Preference for Rule‐Based Classification?
Author(s) -
Murphy Gregory L.,
Bosch David A.,
Kim ShinWoo
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.498
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1551-6709
pISSN - 0364-0213
DOI - 10.1111/cogs.12463
Subject(s) - similarity (geometry) , preference , psychology , contrast (vision) , cognition , cognitive psychology , artificial intelligence , social psychology , statistics , mathematics , computer science , neuroscience , image (mathematics)
Six experiments investigated variables predicted to influence subjects’ tendency to classify items by a single property ( rule‐based responding) instead of overall similarity, following the paradigm of Norenzayan et al. ([Norenzayan, A., 2002], Cognitive Science ), who found that European Americans tended to give more “logical” rule‐based responses. However, in five experiments with Mechanical Turk subjects and undergraduates at an American university, we found a consistent preference for similarity‐based responding. A sixth experiment with Korean undergraduates revealed an effect of instructions, also reported by Norenzayan et al., in which classification instructions led to majority rule‐based responding but similarity instructions led to overall similarity grouping. Our American subjects showed no such difference and used similarity more overall. We conclude that Americans do not have a preference for rule responding in classification and discuss the differences between tasks that reliably show strong rule or unidimensional preferences (category construction and category learning) in contrast to this classification paradigm.