Learned Inattention Effect in Category Learning Task on Verbal Material

In this study, we investigated how semantic knowledge influences the learned inattention effect, that is, a tendency to continue to ignore previously disregarded information when it becomes relevant, in a category learning task. Previous research has suggested that semantic knowledge can mitigate this effect by associating irrelevant information with key features. We aimed to explore this phenomenon specifically with verbal material, as previous studies have focused on perceptual stimuli, leaving a gap in research. We designed an experiment where participants learned categories with and without semantic connections between their features, one of which became diagnostic in the second part of the experiment after being irrelevant in the first part, thus causing the learned inattention effect manifestation. Results showed that the learned inattention effect was reduced in the group which studied on the verbal material with existing semantic connections between features in the learning stage, but there were no differences between the groups in attention distribution, as the test stage revealed. These findings highlight the role of semantic knowledge in category learning, and reveal that underlying mechanisms of the semantic knowledge impact on the learned inattention effect appear to be different depending on the kind of stimuli being processed, which opens up prospects for further research.