Bottom-Up Learning of Feedback in a Categorization Task

We designed a laboratory study to investigate the influence of social interaction on category learning. The objective in the present study is to examine what kind of teaching behavior can improve an agent’s learning of categories. In a computer-based study participants learned four categories for sixteen objects which appear on a computer screen. The objects’ categories determine what kind of manipulation is to be done on the objects. Five tutors and twenty participants were recruited to participate. For the study the tutors were placed in front of a computer in one room whereas the learners were in another room. The learners’ task was to manipulate the objects appropriately through the instructions they received from the tutor on their screens via six symbols. These six symbols were the only way for the tutor to communicate with the learner. We call this a bottom-up learning as it relies entirely on the perception of the tutors’ symbols without any prior knowledge of their meaning. The focus in the present study is not on the ability by the learner to acquire knowledge of the categories but on the types of instructions that the tutor gave during the trials and the effects of the feedback given to the learner. Therefore, the feedback given by the tutors via the symbols was classified and quantified.