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THE INFLUENCE OF LANGUAGE AND EXPERIENCE ON DISCOVERY AND USE OF LOGICAL SYMBOLS *
Author(s) -
FURTH HANS G.,
YOUNISS JAMES
Publication year - 1965
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1965.tb00980.x
Subject(s) - psychology , symbol (formal) , task (project management) , logical reasoning , developmental psychology , verbal reasoning , cognitive psychology , class (philosophy) , linguistics , cognition , mathematics education , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , computer science , philosophy , management , economics
Two non‐verbal tasks of logical symbol use (SU) and of symbol discovery (SD) were devised. SU differentiated adults of higher and lower intelligence. Most pupils of chronological age (CA) 12 and older, but not younger, discovered the significance of the logical symbols in learning the paired associate task of SD. SD and SU were given to deaf subjects and to hearing subjects from a rural, lower‐class milieu. These experimental subjects (CA around 18) performed similarly to controls on SU, but did not attain the success of 12‐year‐old controls on SD. On the basis of these results it is proposed that stimulating past experience may be required for success on certain conceptual tasks which are of the discovery type and depend on the initiative of the subject, but that more structured tasks of logical reasoning are not adversely affected by restricted experience or linguistic deficiency.