Conceptual fluency in inductive reasoning

Abstract

Psychological effects connected with fluent processing are called fluency effects. In a sample of 403 participants we test whether conceptual fluency effects can be found in the context of inductive reasoning, a context that has not been investigated before. As a conceptual manipulation we vary the use of symbols (persons and crosses) in reasoning tasks. These symbols were chosen to provide hints for the solution of the implemented tasks and thus manipulate fluency. We found evidence that these hints influence ease of processing. The proportion of solved tasks increased by 11% on average in the condition with conceptual hints, F(1,399) = 13.47, partial η² = .033, p < .001. However, we did not find an effect of the conceptual manipulation on the temporal perception of the task. In a second study (n = 62) we strengthened our findings by investigating solution strategies for the tasks in more detail, 79% of the participants described the tasks in a way they were intended. Our results illustrate the advantages of the separation of ease of processing, fluency experience, and judgments.