Representational Consequences of Two Modes of Learning

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that a non-strategic mode of rule learning results in atomic representations. In each case subjects were taught concepts under two different conditions, designed to favour either non-strategic or strategic learning. Following training, subjects demonstrated an equivalent ability to discriminate exemplars from non-exemplars of the concepts acquired under each of these two learning conditions. However, performance on a decompositional inference task, which required access to critical constituent elements within the rule representations, was disproportionately poor for a concept acquired under the training condition that favoured non-strategic learning. These findings lend support to the view that rule acquisition can be mediated by either of two modes of learning, and that the format of knowledge representations is not equivalent across these two learning modes.     

Testing Schneider's ASA Theory

Dans une population de 344 cadres de Grande-Bretagne appartenant à 4 organisations, 5 fonctions et 3 niveaux de direction, il fut découvert que les cadres de diverses organisations diffèrent par la personnalité. Il en est de meme des cadres de différentes fonctions. Il n'y a pas d'effets interactifs avec le niveau. Ces résultats furent saisis pour appuyer certains traits du modèle d'attraction, de sélection et d'attrition de Schneider (1987).
In a sample of 344 UK managers from four organisations, carrying out five functions, and at three levels of management, it was found that managers from different organisations differed in personality. So, too, did managers carrying out different functions. There were no interactive effects with level. These results were taken to support certain features of Schneider's (1987) attraction, selection and attrition model.     

Auditory and visual word-stem completion: Separating data-driven and conceptually driven processes

Two experiments investigated the contributions of data-driven and conceptually driven processing on an implicit word-stem completion task. In Experiment 1, individual words were studied either visually or auditorily and were tested using either visual or auditory word-stems. Keeping modality the same from study to test led to more priming than did changing modality, but there was reliable cross-modal priming. In Experiment 2, subjects read sentences like The boat travelled underwater and inferred the subject noun (i.e. “submarine”) or sentences like The submarine travelled underwater and categorized the subject noun (i.e. “boat”). At test, there was reliable priming for both actually read nouns and inferred nouns. In addition, a modality effect was evident for the actually read nouns but not for the inferred nouns. Taken together, these results imply that there is a basic conceptually driven contribution to priming plus an additional contribution of data-driven processing when surface form is the same at study and test.     

Creativity and inductive reasoning: The relationship between divergent thinking and performance on wason's 2-4-6 task

This study was an investigation of the relationship between potential creativity—as measured by fluency scores on the Alternate Uses Test—and performance on Wason's 2-4-6 task. As hypothesized, participants who were successful in discovering the rule had significantly higher fluency scores. Successful participants also generated higher frequencies of confirmatory and disconfirmatory hypotheses, but a multiple regression analysis using the stepwise method revealed that the frequency of generating disconfirmatory hypotheses and fluency scores were the only two significant factors in task outcome. The results also supported earlier studies where disconfirmation was shown to play a more important role in the later stages of hypothesis testing. This was especially true of successful participants, who employed a higher frequency of disconfirmatory hypotheses after receiving feedback on the first announcement. These results imply that successful participants benefited from the provision of feedback on the first announcement by switching to a more successful strategy in the hypothesis-testing sequence.