Preprint; please don’t quote A rule-based presentation order facilitates category learning

We investigated the mechanisms by which concepts are learned from examples by manipulating the presentation order in which the examples are presented to subjects. We introduce the idea of a rule-based presentation order, which is a sequence that respects the internal organization of the examples within a category. We find that such an order substantially facilitates learning as compared with previously known beneficial orders such as a similarity-based order. We discuss this result in light of the central distinction between rule-based and similarity-based learning models. A number of studies have investigated whether category learning is influenced by the order in which examples are presented. Elio and Anderson (1981) found that categories are learned faster when training is blocked into groups of mutually similar examples (see also Elio & Anderson, 1984). More recently, Medin and Bettger (1994) demonstrated a strong learning advantage when training objects are pre-sented in an order that tends to maximize similarity betwee