Influence of Concreteness and Accessibility on Concept-Thinking
Lorraine Nadelman · Psychological Reports · 1957
The problem and design of these experiments developed from many sources, among which were Welch and Welch and Long's work on levels or hierarchies of concepts, and the roles played by discrimination, generalization, and memory in concept-formation (27, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 ) ; Maier's work on the influence of perception and memory on problem-solving, and his insistence upon more difficult rhinking tasks in experimentation with thinking processes (28); an interest in the role of action, motion, or manipulation in the development of thinking; and, of course, Heidbreder's whole series of experiments on concept-thinking (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24). By means of a serial modified-memory technique, Heidbreder found an object-form-number sequence of concept-attainment which she accounted for by a thing-character theory: within a certain delimited range of activity, the readiest conceptual achievement is that which requires the slightest departure from the kind of activity involved in perceiving concrete objects. However, this sequence broke down in sorting experiments, and Heidbreder suggested a second explanatory factor, sitaationul sapport: conceptual achievements occur more or less readily as more or less support is provided by the situation for effective perceptual participation in the performance of conceptual tasks. The situational support is controllable by varying the experimental procedures or materials. Sorting-type procedures and serial-type procedures differ mainly in the degree to which the concept instances are made accessible to perception. In a serial method, the instances of a concept appearing in the first series must be remembered for comparison with instances of that concept in later series, while in sorting or simultaneous methods, the instances are all present and available. A direct comparison of results between Heidbreder's sorting experiments and serial-method experiments was made difficult because of the different ways in which the data were scored. Consequently the experiment reported here attempted to devise a technique which would provide some of the kinds of data obtainable in sorting-type techniques and yet permit a more direct comparison of scores with serial-type techniques. For this reason our two