[HN Gopher] The Wason Selection Task
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The Wason Selection Task
Author : yimby
Score : 19 points
Date : 2022-02-08 18:52 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.philosophyexperiments.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.philosophyexperiments.com)
| V__ wrote:
| 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.
| gweinberg wrote:
| 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.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > 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__ wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| V__ wrote:
| 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.
| bberenberg wrote:
| 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.
| abeppu wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
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