Abstract
Previous investigators have speculated about strategies of reasoning which might account for poorer proficiency in concept identification from negative than from positive instances. In this study novel dependent variables were used to provide a broad data base from which Ss’ strategies could be inferred. These measures were Ss’ responses indicating their conclusions about the concept as they developed during the course of the task, and Ss’ reports, using stimulated recall after the task, of their reasoning used to infer these conclusions from the information given in the task. Three types of strategies were discovered: formal strategies consisting of correct deductive reasoning, concrete strategies consisting of unintegrated inferences from particular pieces of information, and nonprocessing strategies in which no inferences were drawn. Ss receiving a negative instance task used correct formal strategies less frequently and incorrect concrete strategies more frequently than Ss receiving a positive instance task. They did so because of a strong tendency to infer that an attribute absent from an instance was not in the concept.
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Based on data collected for an M.A. thesis by the junior author, supervised by the senior author, and submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Western Ontario. This research was partially supported by National Research Council of Canada Grants APA-81 and APA-137.
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Denny, J.P., Benjafield, J.G. Concept identification strategies used for positive and negative instances. Psychon Sci 14, 277–278 (1969). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329121
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329121