Confirmation, disconfirmation, and invention: The case of Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone

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Abstract
Experimental research on confirmation and disconfirmation as scientific reasoning strategies suggests that these terms are imprecise and should be replaced by positive and negative test heuristics. But this conclusion needs to be checked in ecologically valid settings. A detailed protocol analysis of the experiments that led to the first transmission of speech suggests that confirmation and disconfirmation are still useful concepts at the molar level, for describing the goals of programmes of research; positive and negative test strategies are most useful at the molecular level, for describing the goals of individual experiments. This research illustrates how experimental studies can be complemented by fine-grained analyses of the cognitive processes of scientists and inventors.

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