Single-system models and interference in category learning: Commentary on Waldron and Ashby (2001)

In a recent article, Waldron and Ashby (2001) observed that performing a concurrent task caused greater interference in learning a simple one-dimensional categorization rule than in learning a complex three-dimensional one. They argued that this result was incompatible with all existing single-system models of category learning but was as predicted by the multiple-system COVIS model (Ashby, Alfonso-Reese, Turken, & Waldron, 1998). In contrast to Waldron and Ashby’s argument, we demonstrate that the single-system ALCOVE model (Kruschke, 1992) naturally predicts the result by assuming that its selectiveattention learning process is disrupted by the concurrent task.