Hypothesis Testing in Conceptual Rule Identification
Graeme S. Halford, Gary W. Cross, Murray T. Maybery · The American Journal of Psychology · 1984
Levine's (1966) blank-trials technique for diagnosing hypotheses and strategies in unidimensional concept attainment was extended to two-dimensional conceptual rule identification. It was found that hypotheses could be validly and economically diagnosed in the more complex, two-dimensional task. A bias was observed toward conjunction and inclusive disjunction among primary rules, and to joint denial among complementary rules. It was also found that although hypotheses selected were generally at least locally consistent, there was more resistance to changing disconfirmed hypotheses than has been observed with simple concept attainment, probably because some participants had difficulty generating the full set of hypotheses theoretically possible.