The Relationship Of Executive Function And Rule-Based Category Learning

Nearly three decades, there have been many studies on executive function in the field of developmental psychology. Executive function is a hot topic of the present research in the field of psychology. Many researchers agree that executive function is a broad theoretical prospects and future areas of research. Category learning has been concerned by psychologist in the areas of research in cognitive. Reasonable classification of things is a basic cognitive skills of the people, we can obtain memory resources and communicate to understand, predict and explain the new stimulus characteristics and behavior based on past experience by category. Existing research results show that there is a close association between executive function and learning ability. Rule-based category learning is also a kind of learning ability, so there is an association between the rule-based category learning and executive function related.In the present study, we have adopted the measurement of six classic executive function measurement tasks and a rule-based category learning task, and tested on the80freshman of a Zhejiang University as a research object, to discusses the relationship between working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibition the control and rule-based category learning. In the present study, we conducted a correlation analysis and regression analysis for the executive function task and rule-based category learning task results of correlation analysis and regression analysis by using spss16.0data processing software package. The results showed that:(1)There is a very high positive correlation between working memory, cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control and rule-based category learning correct rate, and a very high negative correlation between working memory, cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control and rule-based category learning response. That is, if the individual’s working memory is greater capacity, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control is the better, so the higher the rule-based category learn from the correct rate, the shorter the reaction time. (2) Cognitive flexibility is a better indicator of the prediction rule-based category learning ability. Specifically, the predictive power of the verbal memory span task, parts of speech conversion tasks, color-word stroop task, and digital conversion task results the correct rule-based category learning rate were7.9%,67.4%,3.7%,88.7%; the predictive power in the parts of speech conversion tasks and the results of the digital conversion tasks rule-based category learning, reaction time were41.7%,55.8%.