Conceptual rule learning and chronological age.

Abstract

Subjects sampled from Grades 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and college solved three successive conceptual rule learning problems (relevant attributes of the concept given, rule unknown) based on one of four rules, conjunctive, disjunctive, conditional, or biconditional. Contrary to several a priori hypotheses, rules ranked identically in difficulty at every age (easiest to hardest as given above). The order of difficulty and the pattern of errors across stimulus types suggested an ad hoc interpretation based on preexperimental habits and stimulus generalization tendencies. Evidence of rule learning (relative amount of interproblem positive transfer), while somewhat dependent on the particular rule, increased with age through Grade 5, leveling off thereafter. The trend was consistent with a transition from concrete to abstract thought at ages 11-13 years.A class concept is a principle for grouping stimuli (objects, events, etc.), in the simplest case, into two categories, called positive and negative instances. There are two components of any concept, its relevant stimulus attributes and a rule joining those attributes. Thus, for example, the class concept crusty snow implicates perceptible attributes "crustiness" and "snowiness" via the rule-form "conjunction," the "and" rule. To be a positive instance of this concept, a given state of affairs must exhibit both relevant attributes, regardless of any other features it might possess; other states or objects, for example, crusty pie, mushy snow, mushy pie, and the like, are negative instances.Learning and applying a concept appropriately necessitates an ability to discriminate, to understand, and to use both its relevant stimulus features and its rule. While it seems obvious that a concept is ordinarily learned as a single unitary principle, there may be some empirical or analytic advantage

The Teaching of Concepts: A Review of Instructional Design Research Literature

“…Some investigators have suggested that more examples are needed to learn abstract concepts than concrete concepts (Al-Issa, 1969;Clark, 1971;Reed & Dick, 1968;Russell & Saadeh, 1962), not because abstract concepts necessarily have more attributes, but because the abstract concepts having fewer perceptible examples and fewer perceptible attributes are more difficult to learn. Numerous research studies have shown that the following learner characteristics are directly related to concept learning: age (Bourne & O'Banion, 1971;Kofsky, 1966;Oliver & Hornsby, 1966;Tagatz, 1967;Wiviott, Note 6), prior knowledge (Wiviott,Note 6), and cognitive style (Davis & Klausmeier, 1970;Kagan, Moss, & Sigel, 1963;Lee, Kagan, & Rabson, 1963;Ohnmacht, 1966;Nelson, Note 7).…”

Inter- and intra-dimensional dependencies in implicit phonotactic learning

“…6, Neisser andWeene 1962;Hunt and Kreuter 1962;Conant and Trabasso 1964;Haygood and Bourne 1965;King 1966;Snow and Rabinovitch 1969;Gottwald 1971a,b;Lee 1981; but see Bourne and O'Banion 1971). Ciborowski and Cole (1973), in the above-cited study, found that the conjunction-disjunction difference was abolished for intra-dimensional categories; e.g., "at least one red" was no harder than "both red", while "a red or a triangle" was harder than "a red and a triangle".…”

Learning to think by learning LOGO: Rule learning in third-grade computer programmers

“…Third, rule-learning tasks can be scored by the more sensitive measures of number of errors to criterion and number of trials to criterion, rather than by just success-failure. Finally, Bourne and O'Banion (1971) found a developmental trend in difficulty of problem solution such that the conjunctive rule was easiest and the biconditional most difficult. The conditional rule was selected for the present study because it is moderately difficult for third-grade pupils, because it shows a reliable decrease in difficulty across elementary and secondary grades, and because pretesting on 15 classmates of the students in the present study showed a near-ceiling performance on a disjunctive problem (the next easiest rule).…”