Thursday, January 12, 2017

Wason selection task

I just learned of this cognitive experiment that dates back to 1966.

In brief, it consists of showing someone the following cards:

3  8  A  B

and asking which cards need to be flipped to see if they follow this rule:
"if a card shows an even number on one face, the other face shows a vowel".

Less than 10% in the original study answered correctly. But in 1983, it was found people tend to get it correct if the problem is presented with cards like these:

15  25  beer  coke

and are asked which cards need to be flipped to determine if they follow this rule: "if a card shows alcohol on one face, the other face shows a number 18 or higher".

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