The Effects Of Self-explanation On Rule-based Category-learning For 4-6 Children

In order to reduce the consumption of cognitive resources,individuals will classify the things around them,thus simplifying their cognitive process.In this process,individuals will gradually adapt to the changing environment,so category learning is an important cognitive activity in this process.Category learning is a process in which learners learn how to classify multiple stimuli through repeated categorization exercises when recognizing objective objects,and it is a basic cognitive activity of human learning.In the early stage of category learning,researchers believe that children’s classification is more based on perceptual features,such as color and shape.However,children at different stages have different perceptions of the characteristics of category members,which may be affected by many factors.Most previous research on children’s category learning has been based on examining examples from memory and completing subsequent inferences,while concentrating on how children judge different categories of material and on categorization strategies,and has not yet clarified how children need to independently construct categories without relevant controls and age-varying characteristics.Research has shown that verbal labeling is one of the important factors in facilitating children’s category learning,while suggesting that children’s selfexplanation can facilitate children’s ability to abstract things and make sense of information.Therefore,the purpose of this study was to clarify the effects of self-explanation on children’s rule-based category learning and to further explore how self-explanation identifies children’s categorization rule features.Using a " Learning-Transfer Paradigm ",children aged 4 to 6 years(48 to 72 months)in Changchun were selected as subjects in a 2(self-explanation: yes,no)× 2(categorization rules:one-dimensional rules,ensemble rules)× 3(age: 4,5,6 years)mixed experimental design.selfexplanation and age as between-subject variables and categorization rules as within-subject variables,the effects of self-explanation on rule-based category learning tasks and developmental characteristics of 4-to 6-year-old children were examined.The experimental material was selected from the study of Edwards et al.(2019)and modified by pre-experiment.According to the results of this study,the main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Self-explanation facilitates the construction of rule-based category learning tasks in children aged 4-6 years;at the same time,older children are able to detect a greater number of category membership features.(2)In the process of rule construction,children prefer to use one-dimensional rules for rules;as they grow older,children’s ability to recognize co-taking rules also gradually increases.(3)Guiding children to self-explain can improve the ensemble rule scores to some extent;also,as children grow older,they may prioritize the use of the ensemble rule for categorization.