Effects of social cues and task complexity in concept identification

Exploration of upper limits of task complexity in concept identification of males and females in individual and social conditions

“…Mean errors were 39.75, 18.46, and 38.50 for Ss in the A, FI, and RI conditions, respectively. Duncan's test showed, as expected, that Ss in the FI condition made significantly fewer errors than those in the A and RI conditions (p< .025), which confirms previous findings (Wolfgang, 1967). Contrary to previous results, learning was not poorest in the RI group.…”

“…Figure 1 shows that error differences between males and females are most pronounced on problems with 6 I bits, with females making over 2-1/2 times as many errors as males. It was noted that error scores for males on problems with 5 I bits under similar conditions in a previous study (Wolfgang, 1967) were not appreciably different from those with 6 I bits in this study, indicating that the additional bit of I information, such as ''background'' (white and green), had little effect on learning rates of males. Thus, the results suggest that irrelevant background cues were attended to less by males than females.…”

“…A detailed description of apparatus and procedure is given elsewhere (Wolfgang, 1967). In brief, Ss' task was to categorize a series of geometriC patterns presented on the screen in accordance with a R binary stimulus dimension.…”

“…There has been little research dealing with the social aspects of CI, where male or female Ss are free to discuss their hypotheses. In a recent study (Wolfgang, 1967), it was found that two-person male groups free to communicate showed only a slight deterioration in performance even on the most complex problems (5 I bits). In contrast, individuals and two-person groups where communication was restricted showed progressive decrement on CI problems of increasing complexity.…”

Individual-to-group and group-to-individual transfer in problem solving.

“…However, previous research has clearly indicated the superiority of cooperative groups over individuals in concept attainment over a wide range of conceptual rules, task difficulty, memory requirements, discussion conditions, and for both selection and reception paradigms (e.g., Laughlin, Kalowski, Metzler, Ostap, & Venclovas, 1968;Laughlin, McGlynn, Anderson, & Jacobson, 1968;McGlynn, 1972;McGlynn & Schick, 1973;Wolfgang, 1967). Thus, in addition to better performance on the two training problems in the GI and GG conditions than in the II and IG conditions, there should also be better performance in the IG and GG conditions than in the II and GI conditions on the two transfer problems.…”