MEASUREMENT AND MEMORY IN TRANSITIVITY - REPLY TO GRIEVE AND NESDALE

Grieve and Nesdale's criticisms of Halford and Galloway's study showing that children who fail to make transitive inferences can remember the relevant comparisons are rebutted on several grounds. Firstly, their argument that the transitivity assessment procedure used permitted false positives involves unwarranted extrapolation from the literature, and is in any case irrelevant to Halford and Galloway's conclusions which rest on negative cases. Grieve and Nesdale's case for false negatives in Halford and Galloway's data is found to be potentially relevant, but is unsupported by any evidence. The general problem of measuring transitivity is assessed, and it is shown that polemics of this kind are inherently unresolvable unless there is consensus in advance as to the operational definition of the relevant concepts. A test procedure which might achieve this consensus is suggested. 1979 Australian Psychological Society