Abstract
Stimulus patterning was found to have a differential effect on the ease with which human Ss attained conjunctive and disjunctive concepts. Twenty-four undergraduate Ss were given eight disjunctive training problems and tested on a choice problem for which both conjunctive and disjunctive solutions were possible. On the test problem, more conjunctive solutions were offered when the stimulus dimensions were contained in a single geometric stimulus. More disjunctive solutions were offered when the dimensions were spatially separated on each instance. The former instances were assumed to allow for more stimulus patterning than the latter. It was concluded that stimulus patterning imposes a limiting condition on the efficacy of disjunctive-concept training, when tested by transfer on a choice problem for which a conjunctive solution is also possible.
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