Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,
Memory, and Cognition

Manuscript version of
Conceptual Anchoring Dissociates Implicit and Explicit Category Learning

J. David Smith, Brooke N. Jackson, Markie N. Adamczyk, Barbara A. Church
Funded by:
• National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development
© 2021, American Psychological Association. This manuscript is not the copy of record and may not exactly
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The final version of record is available via its DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000856
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DISSOCIATING IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT CATEGORY LEARNING 1
J. David Smith1
Brooke N. Jackson1
Markie N. Adamczyk2
Barbara A. Church1,2,a
Authors Note
1
Language Research Center, Georgia State University
2
Department of Psychology, Georgia State University
a
To whom correspondence may be addressed
The preparation of this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver
National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health
under Award Number R01HD093690. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and
does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The authors
declare no financial interest and no conflicts of interest. The data, analyses, and questionnaires
can be viewed using the following link to open science framework (Church, 2020).
https://osf.io/ystr9/?view_only=211b3682a92146d481f0d95e11067137
Correspondence can be addressed to:
Barbara Church
Language Research Center
Georgia State University
3401 Panthersville Rd
Decatur, GA 30034
[email protected]
Word Count: 9860
October 6, 2020
Abstract
Categorization researchers have long debated the possibility of multiple category-learning
systems. The need persists for paradigms that dissociate explicit-declarative category-learning
processes (featuring verbalizeable category rules) from implicit-procedural processes (featuring
stimulus-response associations lying beneath declarative cognition). The authors contribute a
new paradigm, using perfectly matched exclusive-or (XOR) category tasks differing only in the
availability or absence of easily verbalizeable conceptual content. This manipulation transformed
learning. The conceptual task alone was learned suddenly, by insightful rule discovery,
producing explicit-declarative XOR knowledge. The perceptual task was learned more gradually,
consistent with associative-learning processes, producing impoverished declarative knowledge.
We also tested participants under regimens of immediate and deferred reinforcement. The
conceptual task alone was learned through processes that survive the loss of trial-by-trial
reinforcement. All results support the idea that humans have perceptual-associative processes for
implicit learning, but also an overlain conceptual system that under the right circumstances
constitutes a parallel explicit-declarative category-learning system.
Keywords: category learning, implicit cognition, explicit cognition, associative learning,
category rules, procedural learning

Introduction
Categorization is an influential area in cognitive science because it is a crucial ability (e.g.,
Ashby & Maddox, 2011; Knowlton & Squire, 1993; Murphy, 2002; Nosofsky, 1986; Smith et
al., 2008; Smith et al., 2016). Humans could have multiple systems or processes to manage the
diverse demands of category tasks involving family-resemblance, rule-based, conjunctive,
disjunctive, random, or ad hoc categories, just as they have multiple memory systems or
processes. Indeed, memory and categorization systems might be meaningfully interdependent
(e.g., explicit categorization and declarative memory; implicit categorization and procedural
memory).
However, a theoretical countercurrent holds that assuming multiple categorization systems
is unparsimonious and unjustified (e.g., Le Pelley et al., 2019). It suggests that a single system
can predict the relevant categorization phenomena (e.g., Newell et al., 2010; Nosofsky et al.,
2005) if one assumes that tasks vary in difficulty-complexity and that this variation produces
empirical phenomena that are mistaken for the operation of separate systems. It is a lasting idea
in cognitive science that singleness is elegant and scientifically preferable.
Thus, a sharp theoretical debate has persisted, especially focused on the possibility of
dissociating explicit-declarative categorization processes (featuring verbal category rules) from
implicit-procedural processes (featuring associations strengthened by processes akin to operant
conditioning). Accordingly, the need persists for additional dissociative paradigms to help
resolve this debate. Here, we contribute a new paradigm dissociating implicit and explicit
categorization systems as described now.

Implicit-Procedural and Explicit-Declarative Categorization
Implicit category learning. Our approach draws from the neuroscience of categorization
(Ashby et al., 1998; Maddox & Ashby, 2004; Seger & Miller, 2010) that distinguishes different
neural systems of learning. A hypothesized implicit system is energized by one of the brain’s
primary reinforcement mechanisms. It likely grounds skill and habit learning (Mishkin et al.,
1984) and learning during instrumental conditioning as well as some forms of discrimination
learning and perceptual categorization (Ashby & Ennis, 2006; Barnes et al., 2005; Knowlton et
al., 1996; O'Doherty et al., 2004; Seger & Cincotta, 2005). It is allied to various forms of
associative learning, though it does not encompass all forms of associative learning (e.g.,
Pavlovian conditioning). This form of implicit learning occurs gradually and associatively,
relying on trial repetition and immediate reinforcement (Maddox et al., 2003; Maddox & Ing,
2005). Participants learning implicitly may not be aware of their category knowledge or able to
verbalize it (Ashby et al., 1998; Ashby & Ell, 2001). This implicit system is linked to particular
parts of the basal ganglia. For example, extrastriate visual cortex projects to the tail of the
caudate nucleus that then projects on to premotor cortex (Alexander et al., 1986). The caudate
nucleus is well situated to associate percepts to actions, perhaps its primary role (Rolls, 1994;
Wickens, 1993).
Thinking beyond neuroscience, readers will see that this implicit process has a long history
within the literature on categorization. It was central to Shepard et al.’s (1961) founding
exploration of the six logical classification tasks. They asked whether a unitary, associative
mechanism could account for the tasks’ relative difficulties. It was central to Lee Brooks’ (e.g.,
1978) seminal research exploring nonanalytic classification, by which participants associate
category labels to specific remembered stimuli. It was the basis of exemplar theory and exemplar
models (e.g., Nosofsky, 1986; Nosofsky et al., 1994). It dominated the comparative literature on
categorization (because nonverbal animals may have only the associative process—Smith et al.,
2004). This implicit process creates behavioral equivalence classes, allowing organisms to
behave equivalently toward perceptually similar things. One may think of these equivalence
classes as “categories” or not, and readers may differ on this point. Nonetheless, the learning of
these classes has been central to the broader categorization literature, and therefore this
associative process plays a central role in the multiple-systems debate.
Explicit category learning. An explicit system of learning could be supported by
declarative memory. Explicit learning occurs through hypothesis testing reliant on working
memory (Fuster, 1989; Goldman-Rakic, 1987) and executive attention (Posner & Petersen,
1990). These cognitive utilities are known to support hypothesis testing and rule formation (e.g.,
Brown & Marsden, 1988; Robinson et al., 1980). This explicit system should learn quickly,
perhaps suddenly through insightful discovery. Participants would construe the task for
themselves and develop their own rule to guide performance. Their explicit category knowledge
would be held in working consciousness and should generally be verbalizeable. This explicit
neural system is likely grounded in the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate gyrus, the head of
the caudate nucleus, and the hippocampus (Ashby et al., 1998; Ashby & Ell, 2001).
Various dissociations have been demonstrated between implicit and explicit category
learning (Ashby & Valentin, 2017). For example, Smith et al. (2014) used a regimen of deferred
reinforcement that is one aspect of the present method. Participants completed a block of trials
with no feedback. Then they received their positive outcomes grouped together and following
that their negative outcomes grouped together. Reinforcement was displaced in time from trial
performance. Knowing which trials were completed correctly was difficult and therefore
associatively crediting reinforcement to particular stimulus-response pairs was impossible.
Given this feedback regimen, participants learned matched category structures thought to
elicit implicit-procedural and explicit-declarative learning. Smith et al. (2014) observed a
striking dissociation. Implicit learning was devastated under deferred reinforcement, because of
the difficulty in assigning reinforcement credit already described. But explicit learning remained
intact, because participants held in active mind the rule applied during the block, evaluated the
rule’s success at block’s end, and kept or replaced it. Smith et al. (2018) found converging
dissociative results using a different reinforcement regimen that is also incorporated here.
Empirical Goals
Though these dissociations support the dissociative framework described, that framework is
not universally accepted. Therefore, we pursued three empirical goals to develop a distinctive
dissociative paradigm that could advance the debate.
One empirical goal was to move this area beyond its dependence on the rule-based (RB) and
information-integration (II) tasks that are often used to distinguish explicit and implicit learning
(e.g., Ashby & Valentin, 2017). The RB-II dissociative framework is illuminating. We use it
(e.g., Smith et al., 2012). However, it causes interpretative problems. One problem is that the
nonidentical RB and II tasks are rotations of one another in perceptual space, so that the RB and
II category solutions can be construed to have different dimensionalities. This raises questions
about the difficulty-complexity of the tasks and can seem to give comfort to a single-system
description. So, we sought a pair of implicit/explicit tasks that were identically structured in
perceptual space and equated for stimulus dimensionality and other stimulus-to-stimulus
relationships. We thought this might give us equivalent complexity and allow a stronger
dissociative interpretation.
A second major empirical goal was to combine in our study several of the components that
have created dissociative demonstrations in this literature. We hoped in this way to create within
one paradigm a particularly strong and meaningful implicit-explicit dissociation. To this end, we
studied the backward learning curves that can catch humans having explicit and instantaneous
categorization insights. We studied category verbalization to distinguish explicit from implicit
learning within a categorization task. We studied alternative reinforcement regimens that were
theoretically predicted to differentially affect explicit and implicit learning.
A third major empirical goal was to produce our dissociation in a new way, by varying the
kind and level of category knowledge that the implicit and explicit tasks foster. It has been a tacit
assumption within the perceptual categorization literature, and within the RB-II area of study,
that explicit category solutions take the form of conceptual rules that are often verbalizeable.
This raised the possibility that we might produce a dissociation by varying the cognitive
affordances of our tasks, so that one task fostered abstract-conceptual cognition more than the
other. Then, by a range of converging measures, we could catch the explicit mind in the act of
seizing these conceptual affordances. In this respect, the present approach represented
constructive outreach from research on perceptual categorization to research on conceptual
categorization and higher-level concepts (e.g., Medin & Wattenmaker, 1987; Murphy & Medin,
1985; Wattenmaker et al., 1986). It seems to us that there are possibilities for constructive
cooperation and cross talk across the perceptual and conceptual areas of categorization research,
though these have largely remained separate in the past. One crucial binding principle might be,
for example, that explicit categorization is after all a privileged locus for conceptual and theory-
based categorization.
Empirical Approach
We built matched pairs of XOR category tasks. XOR tasks have had a distinguished career
in psychology (e.g., Feldman, 2000; Nosofsky et al., 1994; Shepard et al., 1961; Smith et al.,
2004). For example, Shepard et al. (1961) discovered that the XOR learning trajectory and error
pattern disconfirmed the unitary associative-learning theory they were exploring. Rather,
participants seemed to be using rules and dimensional hypotheses, which Shepard et al. thought
were likely carried by the explicit symbolic vehicle of language. It is remarkable that the
literature on implicit and explicit category learning is still trying—after 60 years—to possibly
find its way back to Shepard et al. That the systems debate remains one of the central debates in
categorization after six decades underscores the theoretical importance of resolving it.
Our task pairs presented a crucial contrast. Though the tasks were logically identical, with
the tasks’ stimuli placed and spaced apart identically in the same two-dimensional space, one
task was configured so that it might make conceptual content discoverable as the task unfolded
trial by trial. This task presented an abstract-conceptual affordance that could support correct
classification. The other task simply had its stimulus values shifted globally (a simple coordinate
translation through stimulus space), so that it did not present such an affordance that we (or, as it
turned out, participants) could discern. In this latter task, we thought that perceptual appearance
and associative learning might dominate. We will refer to the conceptual and perceptual tasks,
respectively, to communicate this distinction.
Participants completed tasks under the contrasting reinforcement regimens of deferred and
immediate reinforcement (e.g., Smith et al., 2014, 2018). Deferred reinforcement appears to
suppress an important kind of reinforcement-based associative learning, while leaving relatively
intact participants’ processes of hypothesis testing and explicit rule learning. Thus, this contrast
seemed apt to dissociate in an additional way implicit and explicit category-learning processes.
We predicted that 1) the conceptual and perceptual tasks would be learned rapidly and
slowly, respectively; 2) the tasks would be learned suddenly and gradually, respectively; 3) only
the conceptual task would be robustly learnable under deferred reinforcement; 4) only the
conceptual task would elicit clear verbalizations of the category principle; and 5) only the
perceptual task (in our view, requiring associative learning) would become essentially
unlearnable under deferred reinforcement (in our view, disabling the necessary type of
associative learning).
We believe that no single-system description can make these predictions. A single-system
description cannot predict both sudden insight learning and slow gradual associative learning
(e.g., Smith & Ell, 2015). It cannot explain why the two kinds of category knowledge—
perceptual and conceptual—would obey different processing principles. There are not perceptual
and conceptual levels in a single system. It cannot explain why deferred reinforcement disrupts
one kind of learning but not the other if attentional difficulty is held constant. From the single-
system perspective, there must not be two forms of learning. Finally, the single-system viewpoint
cannot explain why one form of category knowledge would be conscious and verbalizeable and
one not. We acknowledge that specifying the single-system’s predictions is fraught, because its
proponents have not clearly defined the single system they endorse. For example, Le Pelley et al.
(2019, p. 1408) explicitly acknowledged that they could not provide “rigorous definitions of the
interrelated constructs of cognitive complexity, memory demands, and task difficulty” on which
the single-system idea depends heavily.

Nonetheless, confirming our five converging positive predictions would strongly suggest
that humans have perceptual-associative processes for implicit learning, but also an overlain
conceptual system that under the right circumstances constitutes a parallel explicit-declarative
system for category learning. In fact, because the explicit and implicit processes considered in
this article stand so diametrically opposed across many dimensions of human cognition, they
could turn out to represent the clearest possible dissociation between two learning systems.
Experiment 1
Method
Participants. One hundred and eighty-two Georgia State undergraduates1—with normal or
corrected vision—participated for partial course credit. Sessions lasted for 52 minutes or 480
trials. Participants were assigned randomly to a task and reinforcement condition using their
sequential participant number. Because of the need to supply different verbal instructions,
immediate reinforcement participants (receiving immediate feedback after every trial) and
deferred reinforcement participants (receiving deferred feedback only after an ensuing trial had
been completed) were tested separately in groups of up to four at a time. Participants’ data were
excluded if they completed fewer than 480 trials or did not complete a final questionnaire2. The
final data set included 40, 31, 39, and 28 participants divided, respectively, among these
conditions: conceptual task/immediate reinforcement (CI+), conceptual task/deferred
reinforcement (CD), perceptual task/immediate reinforcement (PI), and perceptual task/deferred
reinforcement (PD). Twelve participants were excluded for not enough trials (0, 2, 2, and 8,
1
Power analyses using effect size estimates based on Smith et al., 2018 suggested that .95 power
could be achieved for all sub-analyses with a sample of 148. A sample size of only 40 would
achieve that power level for the crucial three-way interaction.
2
In follow-up analyses, all GLM analyses were repeated including participants dropped for no
questionnaire to confirm the added power would not change the basic pattern of findings.
respectively, in the four conditions). Thirty-two participants were excluded for not completing a
final questionnaire (4, 15, 3, and 10 participants, respectively). These exclusions were principled
and necessary—they let us equate learning experience, analyze completed protocols, and study
performance levels in relation to participants’ introspections and verbalized rules.
Stimuli. The stimuli were red rectangles, varying in width and height, presented on a black
background in the computer screen’s top center (Figure 1). There were four stimuli in each task,
two contrasting but memorizeable stimuli in each category. Category A stimuli occupied the
lower-left and upper-right quadrants of the stimulus space. Category B stimuli occupied the
upper-left and lower-right quadrants. These placements honored the tasks’ XOR structure.
Figure 1
Stimuli used in Experiment 1.
A. B.
Note: Boxes in the right upper and left lower quadrants were category A. The left upper and right lower
stimuli were category B. A.) Stimuli presented in the conceptual task. B.) Stimuli in the perceptual task.
The widths and heights of stimuli varied between tasks. In the conceptual task, the Category
A stimuli were 65 (width)-44 height and 130-88 in screen pixels. These dimensions produced
squares on our running screens, given that screen pixels are taller than they are wide. This
abstract property of Category A stimuli provided a conceptual entry into this task beyond just
memorizing four shapes and their correct category responses. The B stimuli were 65-88 and 130-
44 in pixels—respectively, nondescript standing-up and lying-down rectangles.

In the perceptual task, we simply added 100 pixels to the widths of all four stimuli. The A
stimuli were 165-44 and 230-88 in pixels. The B stimuli were 165-88 and 230-44. Now all
stimuli were lying-down rectangles, highly discriminable and memorizeable as shapes but
presumably not conceptually codeable in some additional way that could support correct
categorization. Of course, participants might have discovered some conceptual construal of the
task that we could not discern. For this reason, the experiment’s results will offer their own
comment on this presumption. Even absent such a conceptual cue, the four stimuli were mutually
discriminable as shown in Figure 1. They varied by a factor of 3 in area and in shape as well. The
stimuli were also easily perceptible, brightly colored, and large.
Categorization trials. On each trial, the rectangle that was to be categorized appeared at
the screen’s far right. Leftward were the large letters “A” and “B”, with a participant-controlled
cursor between them. Participants pressed keys (S, L, labelled A, B, corresponding spatially to
the two screen icons). Top and Bottom trials were displayed at the screen’s top and bottom, for
reasons to be explained.
Reinforcement regimens. Our crucial manipulation was to disrupt the normal cycle of
immediate reinforcement following response. In the immediate reinforcement conditions, this
cycle was sustained. Participants saw a stimulus, categorized it, and received immediate
reinforcement. After correct responses, they saw Correct +1 Points Total Points N+1. After
incorrect responses, they saw Incorrect -1 Points Total Points N-1. In the latter case they
received a brief penalty timeout.
In the deferred reinforcement conditions, feedback was deferred as follows. Following a
Bottom trial, participants received deferred feedback regarding the previous Top trial. For
example, they might see (given a correct response) presented at the top of the screen in the
position for Top trial feedback, Last Trial Correct +1 Points Total Points N+1. Or, following
a Top trial, they might see (given an incorrect response) presented at the bottom of the screen in
the position for Bottom trial feedback, Last Trial Incorrect -1 Points Total Points N-1. In the
latter case they received a brief penalty timeout. The next trial then followed.
The deferred feedback was positioned spatially to show to which trial the feedback
pertained—this was the purpose of the alternating Top and Bottom trials (see Figure 2 for an
example). This reinforcement did not concern a presently available stimulus, or the most recent
stimulus presentation, or the most recent behavioral response. Thus, associative learning was
disrupted representationally, temporally, and behaviorally.
Figure 2
Trial and feedback structure in the deferred condition in Experiment 1
Instructions: immediate reinforcement condition. Participants were told they would
categorize boxes as Category A or B, that A and B boxes would occur equally often, and that
they would have to guess at first but could learn to respond correctly. They were told that even
though the boxes alternated top and bottom on the screen, this had nothing to do with their
Category A or B status. They knew they would gain or lose points for correct and incorrect
responses, respectively, and that they would receive a timeout for errors. They were told that
errors would cost them points, and time to earn points, and possibly make their session longer.
They were told they would receive immediate feedback after each trial.
Instructions: deferred reinforcement condition. The instructions were similar, excepting
the description of reinforcement. Participants were told that after Trial 2 they would receive
feedback from Trial 1, and so forth, with feedback always lagging one trial behind. They were
told that even though the boxes alternated top and bottom on the screen, this had nothing to do
with their Category A or B status, but was done to help them keep track of whether the feedback
they received applied to a top or bottom trial.
Debriefing phase. An additional aspect of our method was to collect participants’ explicit
reports of their task construals, especially in the conceptual tasks that allowed a conceptual
construal. Therefore, we gave them a debriefing questionnaire containing these items:
Why did you use Response A in this task? That is, what WAS a Type A Stimulus?
Why did you use Response B in this task? That is, what WAS a Type B Stimulus?
These let us analyze participants’ declarative understanding of the categories they had learned.
Analytic methods: questionnaires. The questionnaire items were independently blind
coded by two research assistants in our laboratory. They were instructed to give a questionnaire a
1 or 2 if the participant indicated that they simply used either the height or the length of the box
to categorize. They were to give a questionnaire a 3 if the participant said “A’s were squares and
B’s rectangles” (the correct verbalization of the conceptual task), or a 4 if they said the
equivalent of “A’s are shorter and narrower or taller and wider; B’s are taller and narrower or
shorter and wider (the correct verbalization of the perceptual task). In essence, the latter
verbalization simply described the four stimuli in an item-specific manner, because in this case
there is no constructive conceptual reframing. Codes 5 and 6 were used for explanations like
those for codes 3 and 4 but flipping which were A’s and B’s. Raters used code 7 for anything
else. A third rater provided back-up ratings that were used only to resolve the rare disagreements
between the two students, who were blind to each other’s ratings and also blind to the level of
performance achieved by the participant who completed the questionnaire. Interrater reliability
between the first two raters was 85.5% agreement, Cohen’s = .777. This approach to coding
participant reports—using a third rater to break ties—was somewhat conservative regarding
testing our hypotheses, because it ensured that we retain for analysis all of the difficult and
uncertain reports that caused our original raters difficulty. Finally, a 4th blind rater coded
approximately 25% of the data, and showed a concordance of 91.43% agreement, Cohen’s =
.863, with the final coding.
Results
Accuracy analyses. Figure 3 presents proportions of correct responses for each condition
by 20-trial block. Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations of accuracy overall and in
the last 100 trials. The data from Figure 3 were entered into a three-way general linear model
(GLM) with task (conceptual, perceptual) and reinforcement (immediate, deferred) as between-
participant factors and trial block as a within-participant factor. The significant main effects of
task F (1, 134) = 46.265, p < .001, p2 = .257, and reinforcement, F (1, 134) = 36.109, p < .001,
p2 = .328, showed that participants performed better in the conceptual task and the immediate
condition. The significant main effect of trial block F (23, 3082) = 22.770, p < .001, p2 = .145,
confirmed that learning occurred. The significant interactions between task and reinforcement, F
(1, 134) = 3.930, p = .049, p2 = .028, block and reinforcement, F (23, 3082) = 4.064, p < .001,
p2 = .033, and the three-way, F (23, 3082) = 3.930, p < .001, p2 =.029, suggested that
reinforcement differentially affected performance across tasks. The insignificant interaction
between task and block, F < 2, suggested that the learning trajectory was similar in the two tasks.
Parallel GLM analyses were also conducted adding in the participants dropped for missing
questionnaires, as requested by an interested reviewer. These found the same pattern of results
except that the task by block interaction became significant, F (23, 3818) = 2.874, p < .001, p2 =
.017 with larger N’s in each group (CI = 46, CD = 44, PI = 42, PD = 38).
Figure 3
Proportion correct across 20-trial blocks in the four conditions
Note: CI = Conceptual Immediate, CD = Conceptual Deferred, PI = Perceptual Immediate, PD =

Perceptual Deferred.
Table 1
Means and standard deviations (SD) of proportion correct across all trials and in the last 100 trials in
each condition.
Condition N All Mean All SD Last 100 Mean Last 100 SD

Conceptual 40 .954 .090 .979 .079
Immediate
Conceptual 31 .795 .209 .838 .235
Deferred
Perceptual 39 .828 .163 .907 .157
Immediate
Perceptual 28 .566 .127 .530 .158
Deferred
To clarify the three-way interaction, we conducted three two-factor GLMs with task and
reinforcement as between-participant factors. One used the difference score between the first and
last block as the dependent variable to encompass the whole learning trajectory. The other two
used the first and last blocks separately as the dependent measure to explore the early or late
focus of the trajectory differences. When examining the learning scores, there was a significant
main effect of reinforcement, F (1, 134) = 18.200, p < .001, p2 = .120, reflecting more learning
with immediate reinforcement. The crucial significant interaction, F (1, 134) = 14.416, p < .001,
p2 = .097, reflected sharply reduced learning in the PD condition (all other Fs < 1). Planned
comparisons found that immediate and deferred learning levels were not statistically
distinguishable in the conceptual task, t (69) = .306, p = .760, d = .071, but were significantly
different in the perceptual task, t (65) = 6.385, p < .001, d = 1.662. The very high performance
(.907 correct) shown by participants in the last 100 trials of the PI condition confirms the full
discriminability of the stimuli in that task and their consequent individual memorizeability.
Separate analyses of the first and last blocks found significant main effects of task, F (1,
134) = 30.528, p < .001, p2 = .186, F (1, 134) = 28.577, p < .001, p2 = .176 (first, last block
respectively) and reinforcement, F (1, 134) = 4.713, p = .032, p2 = .034, F (1, 134) = 63.145, p
< .001, p2 = .320, indicating that conceptual tasks and immediate reinforcement produced faster
and more total final learning. (Indeed, this speed advantage was expressed even in the elevated
correct proportions for participants in Block 1, some of whom are already discovering the
conceptual rule.) There was a significant interaction between task and reinforcement only in the
last block, F < 2, F (1, 134) = 13.443, p < .001, p2 = .091, reflecting bigger differences in final
learning between the reinforcement conditions in the perceptual condition, but less differential
effect in initial learning. Planned comparisons of immediate versus deferred reinforcement in
each task (Conceptual and Perceptual, respectively) during the first block, t (69) = 2.027, p =
.047 d = .476, t (65) = .914, p = .364, d = .229 and the last block, t (69) = 3.162, p = .002, d =
.723, t (65) = 7.862, p < .001, d = 1.907, supported this interpretation.
Backward learning curves. Following Smith et al. (2014) and Smith and Ell (2015), we
examined the suddenness of learning in the different conditions. We defined learners as those
who at any point completed three consecutive 20-trial blocks with 0.95 accuracy. In the four
conditions (CI, CD, PI, PD), there were 39, 23, 31, and 3 learners. Chi square analyses found that
the proportion of learners in the four conditions was significantly different from expected
learning levels if there were no relationship between condition and learning, 2 (3, N = 138) =
61.443, p < .001; w = .667. Parallel Chi Square analyses including the participants dropped for
missing questionnaires found the same significant result with a greater number of learners (CI =
43, CD = 34, PI = 34, PD = 4).
Next, we studied the trajectory by which participants arrived at criterion. To do so, we
created backward learning curves (BLCs). That is, we aligned the trial blocks at which learners
reached criterion, and we examined performance levels backward and forward from that point.
Readers should note the following idiosyncrasy of BLCs. Participants who reached criterion very
quickly in the task will have fewer pre-criterion data points but more post-criterion data points.
For late learners, the pattern is reversed. Thus, different participants and different numbers of
participants are captured by different data points in an BLC graph. The alignment of all
participants’ performance at the start of the criterion run lets one see the consensual pathway
toward criterion taken by learners. Without alignment, the arrival at criterion would fall in many
different blocks for many different participants, and any consensual pathway would be muddied
away. Figure 3 presented the data in this way—this is the idiosyncrasy of Forward Learning
Curves.
Illustrating the BLC analysis, Figure 4 shows BLCs for each condition. The solid black
circles show the performance of 39 learners in the CI condition. Performance transformed at the
point of the criterion run. In the 5 blocks before that point, participants averaged .550 correct—
essentially chance performance. In the 5 blocks after criterion, they averaged .992 correct (a
sudden improvement of .442 or suddenly 9 more correct responses per 20-trial block) and
sustained that level going forward. We believe that this pattern is consistent with, and only
consistent with, the sudden discovery of a conceptual category rule (e.g., Smith & Ell, 2015). No
operant associative-learning mechanism produces a learning curve of this character. This pattern
of instantaneous, insightful rule discovery diagnoses uniquely the explicit category-learning
processes that for some reason have remained so controversial within the categorization
literature. Shortly we will add verbalizations—declarative category knowledge—into the mix.

Figure 4
Backwards learning curves for learners in Experiment’s four conditions
A. B.
Note: A. CI and CD conditions. B. PI and PD conditions. We aligned the trial blocks at which participants
reached criterion (Block 0), to show the path by which they solved their task. C: Conceptual P: Perceptual
I: Immediate Reinforcement D: Deferred Reinforcement.
From this conclusion follows predictions for the CD condition. First, because testing
hypotheses is more complicated under deferred reinforcement, we expected fewer criterial
learners. There were 23 learners, not 39 as before. Nonetheless, we expected to see the same
saltatory leap of rule discovery among the successful learners. And we observed just that (.552
correct, 5 blocks before criterion, .986 correct, 5 blocks after criterion, a transition of .434—
Figure 4A, grey triangles).
In contrast, in the PI condition, we expected rule discovery to occur less strongly because
the conceptual content was less discoverable given the nature of the rectangle stimuli. However,
under immediate reinforcement, participants could still learn associatively, gradually building up
response strengths binding correct responses to the four specific stimuli. Or, they could use
exemplar memorization to connect the 4 discriminable stimuli to correct responses. It is good to

remember that implicit learners may well not be learning the formal XOR concept, or even a
differentiation between two coherent categories, but rather learning associative connections from
specific stimuli to correct response choices. In fact, we did have 31 learners in this condition. But
learning obeyed a different dynamic (black circles in Figure 4B). Now there was a more gradual
improvement in performance approaching the criterion run, as befits the gradual strengthening of
correct stimulus-response mappings (.726 correct, 5 blocks before criterion, .976 correct, 5
blocks after criterion, a transition of .251). More precisely, performance increased from 0.777 in
the last block before criterion to 0.953 at the criterion block itself. This was a performance
change of .176, a minimal transition (i.e., less than 4 more correct responses per block) compared
to the conceptual conditions. We also confirmed these differences statistically through
comparisons of the corrected3 criterion scores (Block 0 minus Block -1) for learners in each task.
We found that when compared to the perceptual immediate condition both the conceptual
immediate, t(68) = 5.201 , p < .001, d =1.242, and the conceptual deferred conditions, t(52) =
4.772, p < .001, d = 1.318, showed significantly greater jumps in learning.
Moreover, some of the small transition in the PI condition is artifactual. The criterial blocks
must contain high performance levels. They cannot contain any block of 16/20 (80%) or lower,
for then criterion is unreachable. Such a block would be relegated to the phase before criterion,
creating an artifactual pre-post separation. Similarly, the block just before criterion essentially
cannot contain any block of 17/20 (85%) of higher, or this block would just serve to define
criterion earlier. The artifactual separation is accentuated. Smith and Ell (2015) discussed this
selective sampling aspect of BLCs in detail.
3
Criterion scores were calculated by subtracting the proportion correct in block -1 from block 0.
If block -1 did not exist, we used .5 (chance performance) to stand in for the missing block -1.
Simulations. We used formal modeling to examine our results from this perspective. We
placed simulated participants into a 100-block “task”, with performance governed by a pre-
criterion and post-criterion underlying competence that we could let vary systematically from 0.5
to 1.0. In our taskless simulation, correct performance was simply determined by the throw of a
100-sided dice weighted by the operative competence (e.g., 80 successes in 100 for an 0.80
competence). Given this framework, we could isolate the simulants that 1) could reach the
defined criterion used in the actual experiment; 2) could produce the performance we observed
before criterion; and 3) could produce the performance we observed after criterion. In this way,
we could ask what underlying competence levels our real participants likely had at different
points in the task.
Figure 5A shows the result of our simulation for the CD condition we have already
discussed. This graph illustrates all the levels of competence before and after criterion that can
produce the data pattern we observed (i.e., .552 and .986 before and after criterion). Competence
before criterion must be extremely low (maximum 0.69). Competence after criterion must be
extremely high (minimum 0.90), respectively. There is a minimum gap of 0.21 between these.
This inherent gap represents the pure leap of insight / competence that we are considering in this
article. The formal simulation confirms that this gap must exist, just as did the extensive
simulations in Smith and Ell (2015).

Figure 5
A formal model isolated all the values of underlying pre- and post-criterion competence (black dots) that
can reproduce the observed levels of pre- and post-criterion performance in Experiment 1
Note: A. CD condition. B. PI condition. For example (A), these participants had a maximum underlying
competence of .69 before criterion and a minimum .90 competence after reaching criterion. There was an
instantaneous increase of at least .21 in this transition.
Figure 5B shows in the same way the result of our simulation for the PI condition. This
graph illustrates all the levels of competence before and after criterion that can produce the data
pattern we observed (i.e., .726 and .976 before and after criterion). Competence after criterion
can sink down into the mid 0.80’s and still produce what we observed in that phase. But
competence before criterion in the mid 0.80’s can also predict what we observed in that phase.
Thus, this simulation is consistent with the possibility that in the PI condition there was not any
intrinsic leap at all. Only in the conceptual conditions must one conclude that there is a sudden
leap in competence. Smith and Ell (2015) showed that gradualistic associative models cannot
accommodate these sudden performance improvements.
Finally, we point out that the results from the PD condition also fit our predictions. Our
theoretical perspective suggested that the perceptual task would deny participants the explicit
learning process that sometimes survives deferred reinforcement. And the deferred reinforcement
would deny participants the complementary implicit-associative process. Learning should have
collapsed, and it did. There were 3 criterial learners, about 10% of the sample. In the aggregate
there was almost no learning at all.
Verbalizations. Fifty-nine of 71 participants (83%) were coded to have correctly described
the conceptual condition. In the CI condition, with 40 total participants, with 39 strong learners,
38 participants (all of them learners) stated the task’s conceptual grounding. There was
essentially a perfect concordance between successful learning and the task’s conceptual
construal. In the CD condition, with 31 total participants, with 23 strong learners, 21 participants
(all of them learners) reported the task’s conceptual grounding. All non-learners failed to report
this construal. There was a nearly perfect concordance between learning and a conceptual
declaration again. In both conceptual conditions, participants’ explicit-declarative category
knowledge accounted extremely sensitively for their performance and for the suddenness of their
rule discovery. Thus, the verbalizations were also consistent with the theoretical interpretation
that explicit-declarative learning characterized the conceptual conditions. These participants
discovered the alternative conceptual reframing afforded by the task.
On the other hand, only 12 of the 67 participants in the perceptual tasks (18%) were coded
to have correctly described the perceptual condition. This percentage is more than four times
smaller than we observed in the conceptual conditions. Moreover, of those 12, five showed their
knowledge by drawing (not verbalizing) their knowledge. The others simply described more or
less fully all four specific stimuli that appeared within the task. This confirms our sense as we
prepared the experiment that the perceptual task would not provide to participants an alternative
abstract-conceptual route to reframing the task, so that they would need to fall back on
memorizing the four stimuli. These participants apparently did not discover an alternative
conceptual reframing of their task. In the immediate reinforcement condition, with 39 total
participants and 31 strong learners, 10 were coded as correctly describing the task (i.e., correctly
describing the four stimuli presented under the correct category label). Of those, eight were
learners (2 nonlearners) and four drew rather than verbalized their description. In the deferred
reinforcement condition, with 28 total participants and 3 strong learners, 2 of those strong
learners were coded as correctly describing the XOR rule. One drew the stimuli, and one
verbalized their correct description. Learning in the perceptual task was thus more visual and
more about specific-item associations to the four stimuli. The availability of these specific-item
associations confirms in another way the full individual discriminability of the stimuli in the
perceptual task.
Experiment 2
Experiment 2 explored these phenomena in a procedure different in three respects. We used
a different stimulus domain, involving multiple circle stimuli to be judged relationally, instead of
one rectangular stimulus. We adopted a different reinforcement regimen, one involving deferred
reinforcement delivered only after the completion of each six-trial block. Third, the available
conceptual construal was now about the abstract conceptual relation (Same or Different) between
two stimuli, rather than a shape label given one stimulus. In many other respects, the methods
were like those in Experiment 1 and so we only note the points of contrast.
Method
Participants. One hundred and eighty Georgia State undergraduates4—with normal or
corrected vision—participated for partial course credit. Sessions lasted for 52 minutes or 300
4
Power analyses using effect size estimates based on Smith et al., 2014 suggested that .95 power
could be achieved for all sub-analyses of interest with a sample of 152. A sample of 52 would
achieve that power for the crucial three-way interaction.
trials. Participants’ data were excluded if they completed fewer than 300 trials or did not
complete a final questionnaire. Participants were assigned randomly to a task and reinforcement
condition using their sequential participant number. The final data set after principled exclusions
included 171 GSU participants divided among the four conditions as follows: CI condition (46),
CD condition (43), PI condition (42), and PD condition (40). Five participants were excluded for
not enough trials (0, 2, 1, and 2, respectively, in the mentioned conditions). Four participants
were excluded for not completing a final questionnaire (3 in the CD condition and 1 in the PI
condition).
Stimuli. On each trial, participants saw a pair of circle stimuli, in red (left) and green
(right) that always just touched at the 3:00 o’clock tangent point. The four XOR stimuli were
placed in perceptual space as already described. In the conceptual task, the A stimuli had left and
right radii of 25-25 and 50-50. Category A stimuli instantiated the abstract relation of SAME.
Category B stimuli had left and right radii of 25 50 and 50 25. They instantiated the abstract
relation of DIFFERENT (Figure 6A). In the perceptual task, we simply added 45 to the radius of
all left circles. Once again, this was a simple coordinate translation through perceptual space.
Now all trials presented differently sized circles, so all trials were DIFFERENT (Figure 6B). The
translation through perceptual space only had the effect of changing the task’s conceptual
affordances.
Figure 6
Stimuli used in Experiment 2
A. B.
Note: Circles in the right upper and left lower quadrants were category A. The left upper and right lower
stimuli were category B. A.) Stimuli presented in the conceptual task. B.) Stimuli in the perceptual task.
Here, too, the individual stimuli (circle pairs) were obviously discriminable from one
another and individually memorizeable for that reason. They varied strongly in overall size and
in the circles’ differential areas. The performances achieved by learners after criterion will
strongly confirm this claim of discriminability.
Categorization trials. In Experiment 2, there was no need for alternating trials Top and
Bottom to help participants understand that feedback applied to a former trial. Therefore, all
trials were presented at screen center. The collection of responses from participants was exactly
as already described. Trials continued for 15 20-trial blocks.
Reinforcement regimens. In the CI and PI conditions, immediate reinforcement was
delivered as already described. Now, though, we chose a different approach to defer
reinforcement and disrupt the time-locked stimulus-response-reinforcement cycle. Participants
saw and responded to six stimuli in succession without receiving any feedback. Then they
received summary feedback as follows. In successive screen messages, they were told about all
of their correct responses in the block as their Total Points tally was also incremented. Then, they
were told about all of their incorrect responses in the block as their Total Points tally was also
decremented (Figure 7). Each error message was accompanied by a brief penalty timeout. Under
these conditions, stimuli and responses were separated in time and by intervening trials.
Outcomes were scrambled away from the original order of presentation. There was no way to
know which precise trials had been answered correctly or not. There was no way to strengthen
the associative bonds between particular stimuli and responses. We expected operant associative-
learning mechanisms to be disabled. However, explicit-conceptual learning processes might not
be disabled. Participants could hold their working hypothesis in memory and wait for the
summary feedback to come, judging then appropriately whether that hypothesis or rule was
working out for them.
Figure 7
Trial and feedback structure in the deferred condition in Experiment 2
Instructions: immediate conditions. These instructions were as already described,
except that participants were told they would categorize pairs of circles as Category A or B.
Instructions: deferred conditions. These instructions were the same, except that their
feedback instructions suited their deferred reinforcement regimen. They were told they would be
given summary feedback every six trials.
Analytic methods: questionnaires. At the end of the experiment participants filled out the
questionnaire described in Experiment 1. The questionnaire items were independently blind
coded by two research assistants. They were instructed to give a questionnaire a 1 if the
participant said “A’s were the same and B’s different” (the correct verbalization of the
conceptual task), or a 2 if they said the equivalent of “A’s are smallest with medium large or
medium small with largest, B’s were smallest with largest or the two mediums (the correct
verbalization of the perceptual task). Again, this was simply a description of the task’s four
stimuli. Codes 3 and 4 were used for explanations like those for codes 1 and 2 but with only one
type of stimuli correctly described. Code 5 was used if the person said they memorized the A’s
and B’s and code 6 for anything else. A third rater provided backup ratings that were used only
to resolve the rare disagreements between the two students, who were blind to each other’s
ratings and also blind to the level of performance achieved by the participant who completed the
questionnaire. Interrater reliability between the first two raters was 87.7% agreement, Cohen’s
= .801. This approach to coding reports—using a third rater to break ties—was somewhat
conservative regarding testing our hypotheses for the reason already described. Finally, a 4th
blind rater coded approximately 25% of the data, and showed a concordance of 90.70%
agreement, Cohen’s = .845, with the final outcome of the coding process.
Results
Figure 8 presents performance for the four conditions by 20-trial block. Table 2 presents the
means and standard deviations of overall accuracy and terminal performance (last 100 trials).
The former data were entered into a three-way GLM with task (conceptual, perceptual) and
reinforcement (immediate, deferred) as between-participant factors and block as a within-
participant factor. The significant main effects of task F (1, 167) = 92.483, p < .001, p2 = .356,
and reinforcement, F (1, 167) = 131.320, p < .001, p2 = .440, showed that participants
performed better in the conceptual task and with immediate reinforcement. The significant main
effect of trial block, F (14, 2338) = 20.280, p < .001, p2 = .108, confirmed that learning
occurred. The interaction between task and reinforcement, F (1, 167) = 3.459, p = .065, p2 =
.020, was not significant, but the significant interactions between block and reinforcement, F (14,
2338) = 3.330, p < .001, p2 = .020, and the three-way, F (23, 3082) = 4.232, p < .001, p2 =.025,
suggested that reinforcement condition differentially affected learning across tasks. The
insignificant interaction between task and block, F < 2, suggested that the learning trajectory was
similar in the two tasks.
Figure 8
Proportion correct across 20 trial blocks in the four conditions
Note: CI = Conceptual Immediate, CD = Conceptual Deferred, PI = Perceptual Immediate, PD =

Perceptual Deferred.
Table 2
Mean and standard deviations (SD) of proportion correct across all trials and in the last 100 trials in
each condition
Condition N All Mean All SD Last 100 Mean Last 100 SD

Conceptual Immediate 46 .955 .048 .976 .032
Conceptual Deferred 43 .683 .199 .737 .228
Perceptual Immediate 42 .721 .158 .787 .186
Perceptual Deferred 40 .525 .066 .543 .105
Again, to clarify the three-way interaction, we conducted three two-factor GLMs with task
and reinforcement as between-participant factors. One used the difference score between the first
and last block as the dependent variable to encompass the whole learning trajectory. The other
two used the first and last blocks as the dependent measure to explore the early or late locus of
these differences. Examining learning scores, there was a significant main effect of
reinforcement, F (1, 167) = 7.498, p < .001, p2 = .043, reflecting greater learning with
immediate reinforcement. The crucial significant interaction, F (1, 167) = 8.202, p < .001, p2 =
.047, reflected sharply reduced learning in the PD condition (all other Fs < 1). Planned
comparisons found that learning in the immediate and deferred reinforcement conditions were
not statistically distinguishable in the conceptual task, t (87) = .085, p = .933, d = .018, but were
in the perceptual task, t (80) = 4.247, p < .001, d = .941. Separate analyses of the first and last
blocks found significant main effects of task, F (1, 167) = 44.147, p < .001, p2 = .209, F (1,
167) =41.445 , p < .001, p2 = .199 (first, last block respectively) and reinforcement, F (1, 167) =
35.049, p < .001, p2 = .173, F (1, 167) = 71.603, p < .001, p2 = .300, indicating that conceptual
tasks and immediate reinforcement produce both faster and more final learning overall. There
was a significant interaction between task and reinforcement only in the first block, F (1, 167) =
13.054, p < .001, p2 = .073, F < 2, reflecting bigger differences in initial learning between the
reinforcement conditions in the conceptual condition, but similar differences between types of
reinforcement in final learning. Planned comparisons of immediate versus deferred
reinforcement in each task (Conceptual and Perceptual respectively) during the first, t (87) =
5.968, p < .001 d = 1.263, t (80) = 1.997, p = .049, d = .442 and the last blocks, t (87) = 6.062, p
< .001, d = 1.265, t (80) = 5.902, p < .001, d = 1.308, supported this interpretation.
Using the same learning criterion as in Experiment 1, we found that in the four conditions
there were 45, 18, 16, and 0 learners. Chi square analyses found that the proportion of learners in
the four conditions is significantly different from expected learning levels if there was no
relationship between condition and learning, 2 (3 N = 171) = 85.111, p < .001; w = .705.
These learners then let us study the path by which participants reached criterion (Figure 9).
The performance of 45 learners in the CI condition transformed again at Block 0, with a .383
increase in performance (.598 correct, 5 blocks before criterion to .980, 5 blocks after criterion,
Figure 9A—black circles). Rule discovery, not gradually strengthening associative connections,
is consistent with this suddenness.

Figure 9
Backwards learning curves for learners in Experiment 2’s three conditions that produced learners
reaching criterion
A. B.
Note: A CI and CD conditions. B. PI condition. Trial blocks are aligned at the point participants reached
criterion (Block 0). C: Conceptual P: Perceptual I: Immediate Reinforcement D: Deferred Reinforcement.
As in Experiment 1, deferred reinforcement made hypothesis testing more difficult. There
were 18 learners in the CD condition, not 45. It is expectable for two reasons that deferred
reinforcement had a greater effect on learning in E2 (41.86% learners) compared to E1 (77.42%
learners). First, the working memory demands required to hold on to choices while awaiting
deferred feedback probably interferes more with the discovery of abstract relational concepts like
same/different than with the discovery of basic perceptual concepts like square/rectangle. This
would be consistent with recent research showing that concurrent working memory load
interferes with participants’ transition from perceptually based matching to conceptual
same/different matching in a relational match to sample task (Smith et al., 2019). Second, in E2,
hypothesis testing had to operate over a deferral of 6 trials in a block, not just one lagged trial as
in E1.
Despite these effects, we expected to see the same saltatory leap of rule discovery among
the successful learners. And we observed just that (a transition of .467: .519 correct in the five
blocks before criterion, .986 correct in the five blocks after criterion, Figure 9A, grey triangles).
The transition at criterion was especially strong here, possibly because deferred reinforcement
undercuts associative-learning processes, leaving the participant with only conceptual discovery.
We expected less learning in the PI condition because, even though the stimuli were placed
identically in stimulus/perceptual space, the placement did not provide an intuitive conceptual
route to performance. But we expected associative-perceptual learning to still occur, by
developing stimulus-response linkages or by exemplar memorization (but likely not by learning
the formal XOR task structure or two coherent, differentiable categories). In fact, we did have 16
learners in this condition. Their learning clearly obeyed a different dynamic (Figure 9B—black
circles). There was a markedly gradual improvement in performance, as befits some gradual
learning process. At criterion, there was a performance change of .125 between the pre-criterion
block, .816, and criterion, .941 (.786 correct in the five blocks before criterion, .958 correct in
the 5 blocks after criterion, a transition of .172). This change was very small and perhaps the
result of the sampling constraints already described in Experiment 1. Again, this pattern was
consistent with gradual, associative learning. The difference in the suddenness of learning can be
seen clearly in the very different backwards curves producing similar overall performance in the
CD and PI conditions (compare Figures 9A and 9B). Also, statistical comparisons of the criterion
scores (Block 0 minus Block -1)5 for learners found that when compared to the PI condition both
5
Criterion scores were calculated by subtracting the proportion correct in block -1 from block 0.
If block -1 did not exist, we used .5 (chance performance) to stand in for the missing block -1.
the CI condition, t(61) = 3.740 , p < .001, d =1.254, and the CD condition, t(32) = 6.292, p <
.001, d = 1.3, showed significantly greater jumps in learning.
There were no learners in the PD condition. The deferred reinforcement disabled associative
learning processes. The translation of the task through stimulus space undermined the task’s
conceptual availability. Learning should have been doubly hamstrung in this condition, and it
was.
We examined participants’ verbalizations as before. In the conceptual conditions, 61 of 89
participants reported the task’s conceptual grounding (68%). In the CI condition, with 46 total
participants, with 45 strong learners, 42 participants (all learners) reported the task’s conceptual
grounding. In the CD condition, with 43 total participants, with 18 learners, 19 participants (18
learners and one participant whose last block was perfect but who still did not meet criterion)
reported that grounding. Here, too, there was a strong concordance between learning and a
conceptual declaration. In both conditions, participants’ declarative category knowledge
accounted for their performance and for the suddenness of their learning. On the other hand, only
6 of the 82 participants in the perceptual tasks (7%, a percentage nine times less) were coded to
have correctly described the perceptual condition—that is, they correctly described the four
stimuli presented in the task. Of those 6, 2 showed their knowledge through drawing, not
verbalizing. All came from the group of 16 learners in the immediate reinforcement condition.
Overall, just as in Experiment 1, the results are only consistent with the explanation that explicit-
declarative learning uniquely characterized and transformed the conceptual conditions.

General Discussion
The Difficulty Hypothesis
Through a 20-year theoretical debate, the single-system idea has depended on an amorphous
construct of task difficulty. It proposes that seeming multiple system results can be explained by
assuming a unitary learning system, close to the associative-memory system described here, with
some tasks just harder than others. Unfortunately, the difficulty hypothesis in categorization is
untenable. The descriptor “difficult” has no psychological meaning unless one understands the
processes brought to a task. And single system proponents have not defined the construct of
difficulty in any principled processing manner that transcends case by case convenience (Ashby
et al., 2020).
The present results represent additional failures of the unitary hypothesis. First, single
system models cannot accommodate the performance leaps that participants showed in our
conceptual tasks (Smith & Ell, 2015). Participants adopted instead insightful rule discovery.
Second, single-system accounts cannot explain the qualitative shift of task knowledge from the
tacit and behavioral to the conscious and aware. A second learning process resident in working
consciousness can explain this shift. In fact, Smith et al. (2019) showed they could disrupt this
learning process using working-memory interference in a relational task like that used in
Experiment 2. Third, a single system cannot explain the transition from concrete-perceptual to
abstract-conceptual information. It has no second register of abstract nodes overlaying perceptual
nodes. Fourth, single-system accounts cannot explain the task-selective use of declarative
language shown here. Fifth, single system accounts cannot explain why conceptual learning
selectively survives deferred reinforcement. Deferred reinforcement is a powerful block to many
kinds of associative learning (stimulus response, stimulus stimulus, stimulus reinforcement, etc,).
Clearly, participants have swapped in some qualitatively different learning process that can
reflect on feedback dislocated in time and rearranged out of trial by trial order.
To force these qualitative results to fit a single-system model, one would have to collapse
together the implicit and the explicit, the conscious and the automatic, the reflexive and the
reflective, the verbal and the behavioral, probably the striatal and the pre-frontal, and the
reinforcement dependent and independent. By doing so, you would crush together the principal
diametrical oppositions in human cognition into one vague mass, slowing theory development
and empirical progress. Therefore, we believe it is time for the field to adopt a disciplined
multiple systems understanding of humans’ performance in discrimination, classification, and
categorization tasks.
Human Knowledge and Unitary Description
The present findings reach beyond perceptual categorization toward the literature on
category naturalness and structural constraints on category learning (e.g., Medin &
Schwanenflugel, 1981; Medin & Wattenmaker, 1987; Wattenmaker et al., 1986). This research
showed that humans are flexible category learners, sometimes succeeding in learning poorly
structured categories, XOR categories, even random categories. This research, like the present
research, showed that humans can use their knowledge (e.g., of causality, illness, and so forth) in
support of category learning. We credit this research, in no way claiming it is our distinctive
insight that humans bring conceptual knowledge to the task of categorization.
However, the focus in that area was category naturalness and the search for structural
constraints on category learnability. Research interpretations focused there. Medin and his
colleagues found that interactive-cue models let one account for many learning flexibilities. They
introduced the theoretical narrative that this kind of processing system might serve much of
categorization. There might be no need for envisioning different categorization systems or brain
loci. All categories might be equally learnable through the process of configural cue encoding or
exemplar memorization. This theoretical narrative naturally suggested that categorization is
unitary. By this path, exemplar theory and exemplar models emerged and dominated the
literature for 25 years.
It is ironic that the research on humans’ learning flexibility was redirected to support the
unitary description. The present research helps repair this narrative. Our research shows, by
several converging cognitive dissociations, that humans recruit the knowledge structures that
transform XOR tasks by recruiting higher levels of explicit-declarative categorization. Seen in
that light, the beautiful theory- and knowledge-based work of Medin and others supports the
existence of multiple systems in categorization.
The Content of Explicit Categorization
Our research offers clues about the building blocks of explicit-conceptual categories. First,
explicit categorization is especially linked to the learning of category rules, particularly
verbalizeable category rules. Second, it is linked to category content that transcends the level of
concrete perceptual appearance. Third, it is linked to the use of higher-level relational cues, like
Same/Different. Illustrating this point, the relation of Sameness can apply equally no matter
whether color, shape, size, or any other perceptual features are shared. A perceptual associative
system can gain no traction on an appearance-transcending relation of this kind. Fourth, it is
more of an executive function, a conclusion strengthened by the demonstration that a concurrent
working-memory load interferes with relational learning (Smith et al., 2019). It seems to us that
all of these—the abstractive, the verbal, the rule-based, the relational, the executive—could be
components of a system that builds explicitly more conceptual, theory-based concepts. Indeed,
explicit cognition could well be the preferred place for conceptual, theory-based categorization.
We are not alone in raising these possibilities. Developmental, cognitive, and comparative
psychologists have all considered explicit cognition, relational concepts, and language as closely
allied (e.g., Christic & Gentner, 2014; Grafman & Litvan, 1999; Halford et al., 2010; Hummel &
Holyoke, 2003). The possible bridges between the perceptual and conceptual level of cognitive
functioning have also been carefully analyzed (Penn et al., 2008). But, regarding categorization,
the realization of a multiple systems perspective serves an especially important role, for it knits
together two branches of the categorization literature (perceptual and theory-based
categorization) that have remained mostly separate.
Why Multiple Category Systems?
Explicit and implicit learning systems might play complementary roles in cognition. For
example, humans’ operant associative learning has strengths and weaknesses. It produces stable,
adaptive behavior shaped by contingencies. It is permastored and lasting. It is attainable by many
species, because it need not depend on selective attention, conceptual abstraction, or
consciousness. However, operant associative learning is dependent on immediate reinforcement
and extensive trial repetition. It learns slowly and incrementally. It is inertial—the unlearning of
even destructive habits can be extraordinarily difficult. Learning cannot occur off-line or with
displacement in time or space from the task’s trials. New approaches cannot be chosen, or old
approaches dropped, in a crisis. This learning steers like the Queen Mary.
Explicit learning is a perfect complement to implicit learning because it turns on a dime. It
does not depend on immediate reinforcement or event repetition. Learning can occur off-line and
with displacement. Learning and unlearning can occur suddenly at need. Explicit learning is
superior when the organism lacks conditioned responses and trained habits. It is crucial in crises,
when the organism has to answer the question: So, what do I do now? Thus, we believe that
implicit and explicit learning may both confer behavioral fitness in their own ways, to the point
that other vertebrate lines could have evolved their own version of multiple learning systems.
Comparative studies
Accordingly, one considers an evolutionary perspective toward multiple systems. How
have these systems emerged during evolution, and in which vertebrate lines? This intriguing
evolutionary story shows once more the theoretical power of the multiple-systems description.
In the most sophisticated relational task—the Relational Matching to Sample (RMTS) task
(e.g., Smith et al., 2013), humans and some apes perform successfully. It is meaningful that the
successful apes are those who have received proto-language training (e.g. Premack, 1976;
Thompson et al., 1997). Thus “language” enters the evolutionary story. Monkeys have failed in
RMTS tasks (e.g., Smith et al., 2013) or shown glimmers of success given dogged training (e.g.,
Fagot & Thompson, 2011). It is meaningful that in Maugard et al. (2013), baboons performing
RMTS tasks were disrupted by working-memory interference as humans were in Smith et al.
(2019). Thus, executive processing enters the evolutionary story. In less complicated relational
tasks, with content like in Experiment 2, monkeys are robustly successful (e.g., Shields et al.,
1997), but not pigeons. Pigeons mainly fail in the RMTS task and in true pairwise
Same/Different paradigms (Young et al., 1997), though sometimes they can find low-level cues
like visual calmness/busyness with which to buttress their performance.
The same evolutionary story is told by the rule-based category tasks of the RB-II literature
(see Castro et al., 2020; Qadri et al., 2019; Smith, Ashby, et al., 2011; Smith et al., 2012). The
same evolutionary story is told by the extensive comparative literature on cognitive self-
awareness or metacognition (see Zakrzewski et al., 2017, for review).
This comparative research is illuminated by the multiple-systems description. The species
progression—pigeons, monkeys, apes, humans—is explained if one acknowledges two learning
systems: a basic, operant associative-learning process shared across the species (learning
theorists have accepted this basic process for 100 years), and an explicit-conceptual system that
is also emerging, especially in the primate line (judging by the limits on current research). This is
why Church et al. (2020; also Smith & Church, 2021) proposed that the multiple-systems idea
may be the most powerful explanatory tool today in comparative psychology, for it explains
dozens of findings about humans and animals in discrimination and classification tasks.
In fact, it is an interesting question whether macaques could appreciate the conceptual
affordances of the XOR tasks adopted here. Macaques generally find XOR category structures
problematic because they must transcend perceptual appearance to put dissimilar objects together
in the same category (e.g., Smith, Coutinho, et al., 2011). However, their performance might be
facilitated if one gave them higher-level affordances as we did humans here. Of course,
macaques would have to appreciate these affordances in a languageless way, granting a test of
the necessity of language for this purpose.
Here one sees once more that the hypothesis of multiple learning systems is richly productive
of new directions for theoretical growth and empirical investigation. Thus, for many reasons,
including the new dissociative findings between explicit and implicit learning demonstrated here,
we hope this article helps foster the field’s consensus that multiple systems of category learning
probably underlie performance in humans and possibly other species, too. For we believe this
dissociative framework has great potential to accelerate theoretical and empirical progress in our
area, just as it transformed theory and research in memory—also after a long and sharp debate.
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Conceptual Anchoring Dissociates Implicit and Explicit Category Learning

Conceptual Anchoring Dissociates Implicit and Explicit Category Learning

Word Count: 9860

Categorization researchers have long debated the possibility of multiple category-learning

processes (featuring verbalizeable category rules) from implicit-procedural processes (featuring

stimulus-response associations lying beneath declarative cognition). The authors contribute a

availability or absence of easily verbalizeable conceptual content. This manipulation transformed

consistent with associative-learning processes, producing impoverished declarative knowledge.

constitutes a parallel explicit-declarative category-learning system.

Keywords: category learning, implicit cognition, explicit cognition, associative learning,

category rules, procedural learning

Conceptual Anchoring Dissociates Implicit and Explicit Category Learning

Categorization is an influential area in cognitive science because it is a crucial ability (e.g.,

diverse demands of category tasks involving family-resemblance, rule-based, conjunctive,

processes. Indeed, memory and categorization systems might be meaningfully interdependent

However, a theoretical countercurrent holds that assuming multiple categorization systems

in cognitive science that singleness is elegant and scientifically preferable.

dissociating explicit-declarative categorization processes (featuring verbal category rules) from

implicit-procedural processes (featuring associations strengthened by processes akin to operant

categorization systems as described now.

Implicit-Procedural and Explicit-Declarative Categorization

1978) seminal research exploring nonanalytic classification, by which participants associate

associative process plays a central role in the multiple-systems debate.

Explicit category learning. An explicit system of learning could be supported by

associatively crediting reinforcement to particular stimulus-response pairs was impossible.

elicit implicit-procedural and explicit-declarative learning. Smith et al. (2014) observed a

dissociative paradigm that could advance the debate.

categorization insights. We studied category verbalization to distinguish explicit from implicit

theoretically predicted to differentially affect explicit and implicit learning.

constructive outreach from research on perceptual categorization to research on conceptual

respectively, to communicate this distinction.

suppress an important kind of reinforcement-based associative learning, while leaving relatively

We believe that no single-system description can make these predictions. A single-system

the single-system idea depends heavily.

Participants. One hundred and eighty-two Georgia State undergraduates1—with normal or

conditions: conceptual task/immediate reinforcement (CI+), conceptual task/deferred

reinforcement (CD), perceptual task/immediate reinforcement (PI), and perceptual task/deferred

performance levels in relation to participants’ introspections and verbalized rules.

Stimuli used in Experiment 1.

44 in pixels—respectively, nondescript standing-up and lying-down rectangles.

stimuli were also easily perceptible, brightly colored, and large.

immediate reinforcement following response. In the immediate reinforcement conditions, this

received a brief penalty timeout.

In the deferred reinforcement conditions, feedback was deferred as follows. Following a

disrupted representationally, temporally, and behaviorally.

Trial and feedback structure in the deferred condition in Experiment 1

Instructions: immediate reinforcement condition. Participants were told they would

Instructions: deferred reinforcement condition. The instructions were similar, excepting

they received applied to a top or bottom trial.

construal. Therefore, we gave them a debriefing questionnaire containing these items:

Analytic methods: questionnaires. The questionnaire items were independently blind

participant reports—using a third rater to break ties—was somewhat conservative regarding

.863, with the final coding.

reinforcement differentially affected performance across tasks. The insignificant interaction

Proportion correct across 20-trial blocks in the four conditions

Note: CI = Conceptual Immediate, CD = Conceptual Deferred, PI = Perceptual Immediate, PD =

Condition N All Mean All SD Last 100 Mean Last 100 SD