Category Change in the Absence of Falsifying Feedback

Many conceptual change theories posit that change occurs when the learner becomes dissatisfied with the current conception (Ohlsson, 2011; Strike & Posner, 1992). A necessary component of dissatisfaction is falsifying feedback. The present experiments investigate whether participants exposed to a novel method for eliminating the ability to directly falsify a misconception will still be able to recategorize compared to participants that can directly falsify. The results suggest that direct falsification of a misconception is not necessary for recategorization, and that direct falsification may slow the learning process. Implications are discussed.