Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Previous research has shown that the sequence in whichconcepts are studied changes how well they are learned. In aseries of experiments featuring naturalistic concepts(psychology concepts) and naïve learners, we extend previousresearch by showing that the sequence of study changes therepresentation the learner creates of the study materials.Interleaved study leads to the creation of relatively interrelatedconcepts that are represented by contrast to each other andbased on discriminating properties. Blocked study, instead,leads to the creation of relatively isolated concepts that arerepresented in terms of their central and characteristicproperties. The relative benefits of these representationsdepend on whether the test of conceptual knowledge requirescontrastive or characteristic information. These results arguefor the integrated investigation of the benefits of differentsequences of study as depending on the characteristics of thestudy and testing situation as a whole.