Hierarchical categorization learning is associated with representational changes in the dorsal striatum and posterior frontal and parietal cortex.

ABSTRACT: Learning and recognition can be improved by sorting novel items into categories and subcategories. Such hierarchical categorization is easy when it can be performed according to learned rules (e.g., "if car, then automatic or stick shift" or "if boat, then motor or sail"). Here, we present results showing that human participants acquire categorization rules for new visual hierarchies rapidly, and that, as they do, corresponding hierarchical representations of the categorized stimuli emerge in patterns of neural activation in the dorsal striatum and in posterior frontal and parietal cortex. Participants learned to categorize novel visual objects into a hierarchy with superordinate and subordinate levels based on the objects' shape features, without having been told the categorization rules

SUBMITTER: Frank SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10203792 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature