Group and Individual Identification of Abstract Works of Art

This experiment extends work on group versus individual performance to a new type of induction task; examines effects of ambiguity, information, and instruction on task performance and confidence; and tests the task against the social combination model of a theory of collective induction. Four-person groups and four independent individuals tried to identify works of art of varying abstraction by progressively removing masking pieces over a series of trials. Although the task had a correct answer, the artwork title, the title had to be induced rather than demonstrated over nine trials. Also, because of the subjective perspective that many assume when dealing with the art domain, the task could be approached as a judgment rather than a demonstrable correct-answer problem. Group and individual performance did not differ significantly. Competitive tests of social combination models indicated that the model described by a theory of collective induction (Laughlin & Hollingshead, 1995) fit the probabilities of group hypotheses for distributions of member hypotheses and group selections of masking pieces for distributions of member masking piece preferences. The predictions of five other models could be rejected for both hypotheses and piece selections. On post-task questions groups reported more confidence in their performance, whereas individuals reported more interest and motivation to do the task.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Lebie, Linda

Contributors dc:contributor

• Laughlin, Patrick R.

• Psychology, Social

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9812672

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82226