CONCEPT IDENTIFICATION WITH REINFORCEMENT OF HYPOTHESES AND MISINFORMATIVE STIUMLUS LABELING

College students solved simple concept-identification problems in which feedback was contingent on their current hypothesis (H). No dimension was consistently labeled until Ss pattern of responses over a block of stimuli indicated that he was using the solution H. The results indicated that some Ss were pure H testers, choosing new Hs on the basis of local consistency; these Ss had little difficulty with their problems. The remaining Ss evidently tried to integrate the unreliable feedback information over more than one trial and found their problems quite difficult or impossible to solve. © 1969, Psychonomic Journals, Inc.. All rights reserved.