Improving performance and increasing the use of non-positive testing in a rule-discovery task

A well-documented characteristic of rule discovery behaviour is subjects' infrequent use of negative testing. Previous attempts at increasing the use of negative testing have met with little success. In an evaluation task, we found that subjects appreciate the benefits of negative testing and disconfirmation (Kareev & Halberstadt, this issue). Further, when given the choice, subjects prefer to begin their inquiry by employing a reception mode of inquiry, and only later switch to a generative strategy (Halberstadt & Kareev, 1992). In the present study we had subjects solve two rule-discovery problems. For the training problem, 180 subjects were assigned either to the traditional generation mode, in which subjects had to generate number triplets, or to a reception mode, in which subjects were presented with number triplets by the experimenter. For the subsequent test problem both groups used the traditional generation mode. Results revealed that subjects trained by the reception mode were more likely to use non-positive tests and more likely to solve the second problem. Apparently, training under the less demanding reception mode enabled subjects to realize the potential relevance of nonpositive testing.