Age effects on category learning, categorical perception, and generalization

ABSTRACT

Age deficits in memory for individual episodes are well established. Less is known about how age affects another key memory function: the ability to form new conceptual knowledge. Here we studied age differences in concept formation in a category-learning paradigm with face-blend stimuli, using several metrics: direct learning of category members presented during training, generalisation of category labels to new examples, and shifts in perceived similarity between category members that often follow category learning. We found that older adults were impaired in direct learning of training examples, but that there was no significant age deficit in generalisation once we accounted for the deficit in direct learning. We also found that category learning affected the perceived similarity between members of the same versus opposing categories, and age did not significantly moderate this effect. Lastly, we compared traditional category learning to categorisation after a learning task in which a category label (shared last name) was presented alongside stimulus-specific information (unique first names that individuated category members). We found that simultaneously learning stimulus-specific and category information resulted in decreased category learning, and that this decrement was apparent in both age groups.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• category learning
• generalisation
• categorical perception
• associative memory

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging Grant F32-AG-054204 awarded to Caitlin R. Bowman and The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Grant R01-NS112366 awarded to Dagmar Zeithamova.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: [Grant Number R01-NS112366]; National Institute on Aging: [Grant Number F32-AG-054204].