Playing Cards with Thomas Kuhn: A Critical Reexamination of the Bruner and Postman (1949) Experiment

Abstract

The Colorado College Two experiments replicated Bruner and Postman (1949), on which Kuhn (1962, 1970) relied in his argument that humans resist experience that is incongruous with their expectations-an argument essential to Kuhn's thesis of scientific revolutions. The first experiment measured reaction times for identifying playing card stimuli in three conditions: (a) where all the stimuli were standard playing cards, (b) where stimuli had color reversed (trick), or (c) which included both regular and trick card stimuli (mixed set). Participants were equally adept at identifying regular and trick stimuli in homogenous sets but took longer to identify the same stimuli in a mixed set. The second experiment, a conceptual replication of Bruner and Postman's original experiment, obtained recognition thresholds for regular and trick stimuli while measuring participants' frustration. Participants responded similarly to procedural difficulties for both trick and regular stimuli. An analysis of participants' responses shows that participants used systematic trial-and-error strategy to identify any ambiguous stimulus. These findings are inconsistent with an interpretation of resistance to incongruities.

Visual hybrids induce anxiety: A microgenetic approach.

“…The behavioral report was completed using the criteria defined below on a form prepared ahead of time, and not in freestyle form of notation by the experimenter. Behaviors indicative of anxiety were marked on a prepared table, using categories adapted from Horner and Tung (2011). These were as follows: repetitive movement of hands or feet (what Horner & Tung, 2011, p. 179, term “fidgeting”), rocking, tapping with the fingers, movement of the head back and forth, moving the head closer to the screen, moving the head away from the screen, placing hands on the face, placing head in one’s hands, scratching, squinting, closing eyes, opening eyes, progressing quickly with the microgenetic sequence, pointing with the hand or body, turning to the experimenter, laughing, chuckling, and speaking softly.…”

Routines and Meaning in Life

“…Novel events are not inherently threatening (Kagan, 2009). Indeed, typical responses to novelty include looking longer at the stimuli and disrupting ongoing activity (Scherer, Zentner, & Stern, 2004), characteristics crucial for associative learning (Horner & Tung, 2011;Kamin, 1968Kamin, , 1969. Novelty can be characterized by associations and is likely a complement to routine, rather than a threat, in the experience of MIL.…”

(The Feeling of) Meaning-as-Information

“…by whatever means available the organism will ward off the perception of the unexpected, those things that do not fit his prevailing set." Horner and Tung (2011) called into question the conclusions drawn by Bruner and Postman. They argued that, rather than demonstrating perceptual defense in response to expectancy violation, responses to the trick cards ought to be viewed as systematic problem solving in a learning context.…”