Abstract
The mediational hypothesis of reversal and nonreversal shift acquisition suggests that mediational behavior is equivalent to covert verbalization and thus related to verbal ability. This coupled with the general observation that males and females manifest significant performance differences in measures of verbal fluency leads to the prediction of an interaction between sex and type of shift. 48 male and female undergraduates were tested using a simultaneous discrimination procedure with the shift manipulation occurring during the first task. A 2 × 2 factorial analysis of variance yielded significant F ratios for sex, type of shift, and the interaction of sex × shift. Analysis of simple main effects showed significant comparisons between males and females on the nonreversal shift and between the reversal and nonreversal shift performance of females. These data were interpreted as supporting a mediational hypothesis of concept-shift behavior.
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