Relational reasoning in word and in figure.

This study investigated the relational reasoning capabilities of older adolescents and young adults when the focal assessment was a verbal and more schooled measure than 1 that was figural and more novel in its configuration. To achieve this end, the verbal test of relational reasoning (vTORR) was constructed to parallel the test of relational reasoning (TORR), which has been shown to be a psychometrically sound measure of the ability to discern analogical, anomalous, antinomous, and antithetical patterns within figural problem sets. Two-hundred undergraduate students completed the vTORR, TORR, and a vocabulary cloze test. The psychometric properties of the vTORR were first examined to ensure that data were reliable and valid. Then, the convergence between the vTORR and TORR was tested, along with the degree to which performance on the vTORR could be explained by linguistic ability, as measured by the vocabulary cloze test. Outcomes of correlational and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that there was a significant moderate association between the ability to reason relationally in word (i.e., vTORR) and in figure (i.e., TORR) and that linguistic ability contributed only a limited amount to performance on the vTORR. Of 3 theoretical models tested, a 4-factor model was found to best fit the vTORR data, indicating that the 4 specific forms of relational reasoning reflected in this measure were directly related to overall performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)