Learning by moving: Physical motion accelerates category learning

Categorization is crucial for survival, helping animals forage, navigate, and avoid predators—all tasks involving movement. Yet, dominant theories of category learning treat it as a purely cognitive or perceptual process. Here, we challenge this view by demonstrating that physical movement can enhance category learning—but selectively. Using immersive virtual reality, we found that performing large actions, such as swinging a lightsaber, substantially improved learning of categories requiring integration of multiple cues (e.g., distinguishing aggressive from noncancerous lesions), while having minimal impact on categories involving independent evaluation of features (e.g., sorting by color and shape). This selective enhancement reveals a previously unrecognized motor contribution to categorization and may explain why prior studies missed it, opening avenues for optimizing training in critical categorization tasks.