Sources of Difficulty in Deducing Instances from Concepts.
Abstract
Using deductive rules and correctness feedback, two men and one woman, ages 20 and 22, participated in eight problem-solving sessions that required recognizing valid instances of sets of two or more concepts. (Only the five sessions that involved more difficult concepts are considered here.) For proportions of correct responses, it was found that individual differences were the primary source of variability. In addition to this result, two subjects replicated an earlier finding by the authors (1975) that disjunctive answers are more difficult to recognize than conjunctive ones. These same two subjects also showed the rapid improvement characteristic of insight. More gradual improvement and independence from logical properties of problems characterized the other subject's responding. For solution times, all subjects were slowest during the first two sessions. It was also found that the two 'insight' achieving subjects were more influenced by logical properties of problems and paralleled rapid improvements in correctness with large drops in solution time. Findings were interpreted as evidence for two different strategies for solving instantiation problems -- memorizing correct answers versus discovering general problem solving principles. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1977
- Accession Number
- ADA039718
Entities
People
- Bruce M. Ross
- Robert Gurney
Organizations
- The Catholic University of America