ACQUISITION AND UTILIZATION OF LOGICAL RE LATIONS WITH MULTIDIMENSIONAL STIMULI

Traditional concept learning experiments examined the acquisition of l ogical rules by using the number of errors and trials up to criterion as dependent variables. The focus of interest was more on acquisition than on application of the rules. This study was therefore designed to look at the application of the rules. In addition to the traditional dependent variables, reaction times in classifying multidimensional st imuli were measured. We selected the logical rules of conjunction and exclusive disjunction. On the one hand, the conjunction rule is less c omplex logically than the exclusive disjunction. On the other hand, a neural network model of conjunction only needs two layers, whereas an additional hidden layer is needed for the exclusive disjunction. We th erefore concluded that the application of the conjunction rule should need less time than the application of the exclusive disjunction. Expe rimental results supported this hypothesis. Additionally, in accordanc e with traditional experiments, the exclusive disjunction rule was mor e difficult to acquire than the conjunction rule.