Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Ss were asked to identify ambiguous auditory and visual stimuli (words and pictures), each of which was presented for a series of consecutive trials. On successive trials, the degree of ambiguity (auditory masking or amount of blur) was reduced, so that on the final presentation, the stimulus was easily recognizable. The Ss were divided into 2 grps.; the WRA (wide range of ambiguity) grp. was given a series of IS trials on each stimulus, while the NRA (narrow range of ambiguity) grp. was given fewer trials, starting at a lesser degree of ambiguity. It was found that the NRA grp. recognized the ambiguous stimuli earlier than did the WRA grp., indicating that an initial misinterpretation of an ambiguous stimulus can interfere with its later veridical recognition. Performance on the recognition tasks was predictable from scores on a set of cognitive factors, among them flexibility of closure (field dependence-independence) and cognitive flexibility-rigidity.