The Wason Selection Task

The Wason Selection Task(philosophyexperiments.com)

24 points by yimby 4 years ago | 15 comments

micouay 4 years ago |

This supposedly proves that humans are much better tracking social contracts than arbitrary, abstract ones. But I feel like it's actually the wording that makes the puzzle hard. We don't think:

> If somebody is drinking beer, they are 21+.

We think:

> To drink beer, you must be 21+.

And if you formulate the other puzzles in the same way, they are much simpler:

> If a card has a circle on one side, it must have the yellow color on the other side.

Is this your impression too? (Actually, after writing this comment I realised I hadn't checked the red card... But I also hadn't checked the 17 yo lol.)

V__ 4 years ago |

Every time I come across this or similar examples, the phrasing always tricks one into thinking "A therefore B" and "B therefore A". As soon as it's clear that is not the case, the problems become relatively easy.

I would really like to see two test groups given this test and one gets the aforementioned warning. I believe this test doesn't really test logical thinking, but our biases about what we think the rules are implying.

nicoburns 4 years ago | |

> I believe this test doesn't really test logical thinking, but our biases about what we think the rules are implying.

The most interesting thing this brings up is a bimodal distribution of answers between those that take a "quick intuitive answer" approach and those that a "stop and think through it carefully" approach. This can be influenced in towards either method by priming the testee as you suggest. But the fascinating thing is that if you don't do this, you find that each individual has an innate preference towards one or other method.

This is one of the main subjects of Daniel Kahneman's book "Thinking Fast and Slow" (see also: "Maps of Bounded Rationality" if you'd rather read something journal article sized), and along with introversion/extraversion constitutes one of the primary axis of the MBTI.

V__ 4 years ago | | |

Funny you bring this up. Last time I came upon this test, I took the time and solved it correctly. Today I was watching YouTube in another tab and just clicked through it and got it totally wrong.

Thank you for the MBTI reference, will check it out.

mcphage 4 years ago | |

I think the question is phrased pretty explicitly to be of the form "If A then B". Are you saying that they're being misleading? Or are you saying that the normal english meaning of "If A then B" is "A therefore B and B therefore A"?

The later might be the case—"or" is another case where the logical connective and normal interpretation differ; the logical "or" is inclusive, but the standard english meaning is exclusive. Then the fact that people are more likely to get question 3 correct is due to the fact that we're more familiar with the situation, and so already know that "If A then B" really is the logical connective.

bberenberg 4 years ago | | |

It's not asking you to test the card alone. It's asking to test the rule as it applies to the card. You have to check ABBA or you're not actually applying the rule to the card. This seems like QA done by an engineer vs QA done by someone who cares about QA. The "right" answer here is wrong.

V__ 4 years ago | | |

I don't think they are intentional misleading. It's just that most people don't read correctly stated logical statements often and might interpret more meaning into the sentence than was intended.

gweinberg 4 years ago | |

The problem is, if you read the rule as "if and only if", then you always have to look at everything, right? But I I think a lot of people who get the answer wrong only apply the only if logic one way. That is, if the rule is "a circle on one side must be yellow on the other", they'll check the yellow side to make sure it has a circle (even though it doesn't have to), but they won't check the square to make sure it isn't yellow. They "understand" that a square on one side and yellow on the other is allowed when they see a square, but not when the see a yellow.

abeppu 4 years ago | |

> I believe this test doesn't really test logical thinking, but our biases about what we think the rules are implying.

I agree, and I think for this reason the ordering of the questions is important. I think people correctly understand the rule about drinking, and handling that question first might set people up to correctly interpret the other rules.

dinkleberg 4 years ago |

Am I wrong in thinking that some of these answers while correct, are correct for the wrong reason?

I know this is pedantic, but not sure if this is just them explaining it oddly or if I'm thinking about it incorrectly.

[Spoilers?]

It says:

Yellow. It is not necessary to turn this card over. The card is showing yellow, therefore, we already know that the rule is upheld. The rule only requires that when a circle appears it is paired with yellow. We already have the requisite yellow, so there's no problem even if there's a circle on the other side of the card.

A therefore B doesn't mean B therefore A. We don't flip over the yellow card because nothing tells us that a yellow card needs a circle on the other side. Not because it is yellow and we know that the circle is on the other side, because we don't know.

Closi 4 years ago | |

Their explanation seems fine to me, if a little awkward.

> We don't flip over the yellow card because nothing tells us that a yellow card needs a circle on the other side. Not because it is yellow and we know that the circle is on the other side, because we don't know.

If a card is yellow, it doesn't matter what is on the other side, so we don't have to check it. Either it is a circle, in which case the rule is upheld, or it is any other shape, in which the rule is still upheld.

In the case of the red card, it DOES matter what is on the other side, as if it is a circle the rule is broken.

pengstrom 4 years ago |

Good use of the contrapositive rule. If A => B then also ¬B => A¬