A new tool for measuring individual differences in conceptual structure

Abstract

Implicit concept mapping (iCmap; Aidman & Egan, 1998), measures: (1) the complexity of conceptual activation, and (2) the degree to which integration is internally consistent. These characteristics describe aspects of both Dual Code theory (DCT; Paivio,1986) and of lexical meaning (Johnson-Laird, 1987). Within the DCT literature, two kinds of representations have been proposed, verbal and nonverbal, and in the case of concrete words both kinds of representations will be activated compared to abstract words, which only have a verbal representation. 40 Participants completed Experiment 1, which aimed to assess degree of conceptual change due to learning. The results revealed no change in performance. 120 Participants completed Experiment 2 with a modified task called, progressive concept mapping (proCmap). The results indicated that concrete nouns had greater consistency between trials relative to abstract nouns, whereas abstract nouns had greater complexity. These results provide confirmatory evidence that proCmap is sensitive to information associated with conceptual structure