Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Other-generated hypotheses are often considered easier to test than self-generated hyptitheses. T o determine the precise effects of other-generated hypotheses, w e propose three kinds of effects and describe a study designed to test for these effects of hypothesis source. T h e three kinds of effects considered are: (i) hypothesis plausibility changes, (ii) skepticism changes, and (iii) process changes. Forty-two undergraduate subjects were given a microworld discovery task called Milktruck. Subjects either had to generate their o w n initial hypothesis or were given the most frequently generated hypothesis. It w a s found that the other- generated hypothesis lead to m o r e thorough investigation of hypotheses resulting in a decrease in false terminations with incorrect solutions. T h e results suggested these effects were caused by an increjise in skepticism rather than changes in hypothesis plausibility or process changes.