Category Selection and Encoding as a Function of Overtraining

Abstract

Following undertraining, criterion training, or overtraining on two sets of four nonsense figures each, 40 male and 20 female undergraduates were administered a questionnaire designed to investigate the way in which they transformed the nominal figures to functional stimuli. Overtraining resulted in subjects identifying the four nonsense figures within a stimulus set from the same representational category, e.g., trees, dragons, sharp points, etc. Half the overtrained subjects employed stimulus encoding and the other half used transformations of stimulus selection. None of the undertrained or criterion trained subjects transformed entire stimulus sets into representational categories.