Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Judgments of learning (JOLs) often modify memory but their impact on category learning remains poorly understood. In this study, we examined how concurrent JOLs affect prototype abstraction, a category learning task believed to rely on implicit memory. Participants studied low- and high-level distortions of a prototypical Blarg object either passively, while generating random numbers, or while making JOLs. They were then tested on their ability to identify novel Blargs, including the previously unpresented prototypes. Compared to the random number generators, participants who made JOLs while studying were less likely to endorse the prototypical Blarg. The JOL group was also less likely than the passive group to endorse foil items. Computational modeling suggested that higher learning rates, which could indicate effortful, explicit processing, reduced both prototype and foil endorsement. These findings suggest that JOLs disrupt prototype abstraction by pushing participants away from implicit learning, promoting explicit encoding strategies.