Intentional and Incidental Classification Learning in Category Use

Traditional classification learning studies tell us that people learn to attend to the diagnostic features of exemplars (Kruschke, 1992; Medin & Schaffer, 1978; Shepard, Hovland, & Jenkins, 1961). But recent research has discovered that the learning task influences what information people learn about categories (Markman & Ross, 2003). A learning task can either be the primary goal or be incidental to some other larger goal. This study investigated how intentional vs. incidental classification changes the kind of category information learned. The intentional classification group replicated previous studies by learning the diagnostic features, while the incidental classification group acquired information beyond the diagnostic features.