Labels for Response Categories: Do Neutral Labels Make Conjunctive and Inclusive Disjunctive Concepts Equally Difficult

Abstract

Four groups of 6 or 7 Ss each worked one problem involving a different concept rule where directional labels for response categories were used. The concept rules were conjunction, alternate denial, inclusive disjunction, and joint denial. Two groups of 8 Ss each worked one problem involving a different concept-rule problem with a neutral pair of labels. The concept rules were conjunction/alternate denial and inclusive disjunction/joint denial. A complete learning task was used. Significant rule effects were found within directional and neutral labels. In addition, conjunction/alternate denial with neutral labels was intermediate in difficulty between conjunction and alternate denial rule with directional labels. Likewise, the inclusive disjunction/joint denial rule was intermediate in difficulty between the inclusive disjunction and joint denial rules. The evidence also suggested that the first neutral label seen and/or the neutral label of lesser frequency acted strongly to determine the label upon which S focused attention.