Judgments of learning impair rule-based discovery.

Eliciting judgments of learning (JOLs) from participants has been shown to enhance memory recall on paired-associates tasks in some contexts, a reactivity effect. However, little is known about the effect of JOLs on forms of learning where the task requires generalizing beyond the training set, such...

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Published in:Memory & Cognition Vol. 54; no. 1; pp. 45 - 59
Main Authors: Double, Kit S., Tran, Dominic, Goldwater, Micah B.
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Jan2026
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Jan2026
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        10.3758/s13421-025-01737-6
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        atl: Judgments of learning impair rule-based discovery.
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        au:
          Double, Kit S.
          Tran, Dominic
          Goldwater, Micah B.
        affil: https://ror.org/0384j8v12 School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
      su:
        United States
        United Kingdom
        Task performance
        Problem solving
        Analysis of variance
        Judgment (Psychology)
        Cognition
        Statistical power analysis
        T-test (Statistics)
        Research funding
        Descriptive statistics
        Learning strategies
        Comparative studies
        Data analysis software
      sug:
        subj:
          Task performance
          Problem solving
          Analysis of variance
          Judgment (Psychology)
          Cognition
          United States
          United Kingdom
          Statistical power analysis
          T-test (Statistics)
          Research funding
          Descriptive statistics
          Learning strategies
          Comparative studies
          Data analysis software
      keyword:
        Category learning
        Judgments of learning
        Knowledge transfer
        Memorization
        Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology
        Reactivity
        Relational learning
        Rule-based discovery
        Category learning
        Judgments of learning
        Knowledge transfer
        Memorization
        Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology
        Reactivity
        Relational learning
        Rule-based discovery
      ab: Eliciting judgments of learning (JOLs) from participants has been shown to enhance memory recall on paired-associates tasks in some contexts, a reactivity effect. However, little is known about the effect of JOLs on forms of learning where the task requires generalizing beyond the training set, such as in category learning. Here, we explore the effect of JOLs on relational rule discovery using a categorization paradigm. In Experiments 1 and 2, where both a relational rule and visual stimulus features can be effectively used for categorization, we show that JOLs impair rule discovery but do not affect memorization of visual features. In Experiment 3, we modified the task such that only a relational rule could be used to categorize stimuli and observed no evidence of reactivity. We explain these findings using a conservative strategy-shift account of reactivity, which proposes that eliciting JOLs causes participants to shift strategies to utilize the more obviously rewarded strategy. Specifically, when participants have multiple viable strategies, JOLs shift participants' categorization strategy away from rule discovery and instead encourage a more obvious strategy based on memorization of visual features.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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