Research Article Learning Concepts and Categories Is Spacing the ‘‘Enemy of Induction’’?

ABSTRACT—Inductive learning—that is, learning a new concept or category by observing exemplars—happens constantly, for example, when a baby learns a new word or a doctor classifies x-rays. What influence does the spacing of exemplars have on induction? Compared with massing, spacing enhances long-term recall, but we expected spac-ing to hamper induction by making the commonalities that define a concept or category less apparent. We asked participants to study multiple paintings by different ar-tists, with a given artist’s paintings presented consecutive-ly (massed) or interleaved with other artists ’ paintings (spaced). We then tested induction by asking participants to indicate which studied artist (Experiments 1a and 1b) or whether any studied artist (Experiment 2) painted each of a series of new paintings. Surprisingly, induction profited from spacing, even though massing apparently created a sense of fluent learning: Participants rated massing as more effective than spacing, even after their own test performance had demonstrated the opposite. The spacing effect refers to the nearly ubiquitous finding that items studied once and revisited after a delay are recalled better in the long term than are items studied repeatedly with no in-tervening delay (e.g., Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted, & Rohrer