The role of category learning in the acquisition and retention of perceptual expertise: A behavioral and neurophysiological study

This study examined the neural mechanisms underlying perceptual categorization and expertise. Participants were either exposed to or learned to classify three categories of cars (sedans, SUVs, antiques) at either the basic or subordinate level. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) as well as accuracy and reaction time were recorded before, immediately after, and 1-week after training. Behavioral results showed that only subordinate-level training led to better discrimination of trained cars, and this ability was retained a week after training. ERPs showed an equivalent increase in the N170 across all three training conditions whereas the N250 was only enhanced in response to subordinate-level training. The behavioral and electrophysiological results distinguish category learning at the subordinate level from category learning occurring at the basic level or from simple exposure. Together with data from previous investigations, the current results suggest that subordinate-level training, but not basic-level or exposure training, leads to expert-like improvements in categorization accuracy. These improvements are mirrored by changes in the N250 rather than the N170 component, and these effects persist at least a week after training, so are conceivably related to long-term learning processes supporting perceptual expertise.