The Inference of Covert Hypotheses by Verbal Reports in Concept-Learning Research

1975 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-322
Author(s):  
Allan Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Hypothesis Testing ◽  
Concept Learning ◽  
Concept Acquisition ◽  
Similar Function ◽  
Verbal Reports ◽  
Blank Trial ◽  
Acquisition Task ◽  
Learning Research

A paradigm designed to examine the degree to which verbal reports represent the subject's learning was evaluated using a concept-acquisition task. Specifically, the degree to which hypotheses verbalized during the concept-acquisition procedure represent the covert hypotheses controlling category responding was examined. Subjects were required to make category responses, verbal reports, and sorts and re-sorts (blank-trial probes) of the stimuli at intervals in a reception paradigm. By comparing the sorts made during the acquisition procedure, the re-sorts after a 1-week delay, and the sorts made by subjects who had not participated in the acquisition procedure, it was determined that the verbal reports do not accurately represent the underlying hypothesis-testing process under all conditions. Verbal reports elicited at the beginning of the acquisition procedure and at criterion accurately represented the underlying hypotheses; those elicited at intervening points did not. The ambiguity of the verbal reports was a similar function of acquisition trials.

Interference of Introspection with Thinking in Concept Identification

1983 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 641-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald T. Kellogg ◽  
Candace S. Holley
Keyword(s):  
Hypothesis Testing ◽  
Concept Identification ◽  
Verbal Reports ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Complex Thinking ◽  
Within Subjects

We examined changes in learning and in the content of verbal reports as a function of the regularity of introspective probes. Using a within-subjects design, concurrent undirected introspection was required on 0%, 50%, or 100% of the trials of a concept-identification task. The data for 18 subjects showed no differences in learning across 3 conditions. Verbal reports were classified according to the types of mental processes they indicated, e.g., hypothesis-testing. Analysis of the proportions of observed types suggested that the attention of subjects under the 100% condition wandered more to thoughts unrelated to the task than under the 50% condition; otherwise, the content of the verbal reports was uniform across these conditions. Undirected concurrent introspection seems to be a noninterfering, useful method for studying the nature of complex thinking.

Fodor and the Innateness of All (Basic) Concepts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
Keyword(s):  
Concept Learning ◽  
Concept Acquisition ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Trial And Error ◽  
Basic Concepts

This chapter reviews Fodor’s contribution to the epic Chomsky-Piaget Royaumont debate. The issue that was under discussion was a familiar one, namely, what psychological processes underlie concept learning. Piaget thought concept learning involved the formation and confirmation of hypotheses that a learner generates through the construction and organization of stimuli gathered from the environment, and modifying them when they proved to be inconsistent. However, Fodor pointed out a fundamental flaw in this theory: it is silent about the origin of the concepts used in generating the hypotheses. Fodor argued that in order for these hypotheses to be tested, let alone generated, they needed to have been readily available to the learner, suggesting that all primitive concepts are innate, and that concept acquisition relies on the process of triggering these concepts that are innately available to the learner, and not through construction by means of progressive guesses and trial-and-error.

Comment: A role of Language in Infant Emotion Concept Acquisition

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 251-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly Shablack ◽  
Andrea G. Stein ◽  
Kristen A. Lindquist
Keyword(s):  
Concept Learning ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Concept Acquisition ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Discrete Emotions ◽  
Emotion Development ◽  
Discrete Emotion ◽  
Development Literature ◽  
Emotion Labels

Ruba and Repacholi (2020) review an important debate in the emotion development literature: whether infants can perceive and understand facial configurations as instances of discrete emotion categories. Consistent with a psychological constructionist account (Lindquist & Gendron, 2013; Shablack & Lindquist, 2019), they conclude that infants can perceive valence on faces, but argue the evidence is far from clear that infants perceive and understand discrete emotions. Ruba and Repacholi outline a novel developmental trajectory of emotion perception and understanding in which early emotion concept learning may be language-independent. In this comment, we argue that language may play a role in emotion concept acquisition even prior to children’s ability to produce emotion labels. We look forward to future research addressing this hypothesis.

Conditional Concept Learning and Cognitive Style

1975 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 859-862 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Kent Davis
Keyword(s):  
Hypothesis Testing ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Concept Learning ◽  
Additional Research ◽  
Analytic Cognitive Style ◽  
Compound Cue ◽  
Better Than

It was predicted that (a) Ss with an analytic cognitive style would out-perform Ss with a global cognitive style on compound-cue problems which could be learned by either a conditional rule or a color rule, and (b) global and analytic Ss would perform equally on a single-cue problem which could be solved only by a conditional rule. 36 analytic and 36 global Ss learned one of the two problems. Analysis showed that analytic Ss performed significantly better than global Ss only on the compound-cue problem. The results suggested that the better performance of analytic Ss is limited to problems which require some degree of stimulus differentiation. It was further suggested that additional research on hypothesis-testing might help clarify the differences in performance between analytic and global Ss.

Episodic Components of Concept Representation Indicated in Concept Acquisition

1983 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 931-960 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irwin D. Nahinsky ◽  
M. Sheila Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Concept Learning ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Concept Acquisition ◽  
Paired Comparisons ◽  
Concept Representation ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Person Description ◽  
Degree Of Overlap

Subjects were given concept-learning tasks in a series of three experiments, with stimuli containing descriptions of persons along four dimensions. A series of test trials, with stimuli including those presented earlier as well as new stimuli, followed the learning task. Subjects in all three experiments classified old concept exemplars more rapidly than new exemplars on test trials. This result held despite the fact that new exemplars were equal to old exemplars in terms of problem-relevant information and judged similarity to old exemplars (as derived in Exp. 4). In Exp. 1 pictorial exemplars of person-descriptions, which contained all problem-relevant information, were presented. Old stimuli were matched with new stimuli on these descriptions and differed from them only on pictorial exemplars. In Exp. 2 the same type of stimulus was used, but new exemplars varied on degree of person-description overlap with old exemplars. Degree of overlap varied positively with classification speed for new exemplars. Exp. 3 repeated Exp. 2, but with elimination of pictorial exemplars, and the influence of overlap on classification speed disappeared. In Exp. 4 subjects made paired comparisons of the stimuli used in the first three experiments; results verified that the stimuli were represented mainly as additive combinations of the four person-descriptive dimensions. It was concluded that concepts learned in the first three experiments were represented largely by exemplars associated with acquisition independently of dimension values.

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