On the Failure to Eliminate Hypotheses in a Conceptual Task
@article{Wason1960OnTF, title={On the Failure to Eliminate Hypotheses in a Conceptual Task}, author={Peter Cathcart Wason}, journal={Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology}, year={1960}, volume={12}, pages={129 - 140} }
This investigation examines the extent to which intelligent young adults seek (i) confirming evidence alone (enumerative induction) or (ii) confirming and discontinuing evidence (eliminative induction), in order to draw conclusions in a simple conceptual task. The experiment is designed so that use of confirming evidence alone will almost certainly lead to erroneous conclusions because (i) the correct concept is entailed by many more obvious ones, and (ii) the universe of possible instances…
1,742 Citations
Explanation, imagination, and confidence in judgment.
- PsychologyPsychological bulletin
- 1991
A review of studies using experimental manipulations indicates that people who explain or imagine a possibility then express greater confidence in the truth of that possibility, and this effect results from the approach people take in the explanation or imagination task.
Reasoning and Rationality
- Philosophy
- 1995
This paper considers certain experimental tasks used by cognitive psychologists, performance on which has been thought to show that intelligent and able human subjects are `irrational'. It is argued…
When falsification fails
- Psychology
- 1997
This study investigated the effectiveness of a falsification logic at early and late stages of the hypothesis testing process. The subject’s task was to discover the “laws of motion” in a…
Look Again: Pedagogical Demonstration Facilitates Children's Use of Counterevidence.
- PsychologyChild development
- 2020
Four experiments found that young children were significantly more likely to revise their initial inferences when conflicting evidence was explicitly demonstrated for them, and used a subtle clue to infer the correct rule.
Symposium on “Cognition and Rationality: Part I” Relevance effects in reasoning
- Psychology
- 2006
Reasoning research has focussed mainly on the type of cognitive processes involved when representing premises and when producing conclusions. But less is known about the factors that guide these…
Building Bridges Across Cognitive Sciences Around the World
- Psychology
- 2012
We examine whether reasoning is improved by evaluative feedback, i.e., the information of whether a reasoner’s answer was correct or incorrect, and report two studies that show that evaluative…
Evaluating Negative Tests and Refutations in a Rule Discovery Task
- Psychology
- 1993
Subjects participating in Wason's rule discovery task (1960) overwhelmingly try to confirm rather than refute their currently held hypothesis. Such a strategy is often inadequate and runs counter to…
Sensible reasoning in two tasks: Rule discovery and hypothesis evaluation
- PsychologyMemory & cognition
- 1989
The hypothesis testing skills of undergraduates were measured in two tasks: the 2-4-6 rule discovery task in which students generate and assess hypotheses, and a hypothesis evaluation task, which…
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 10 REFERENCES
Rank correlation between two variables, one of which is ranked, the other dichotomous.
- MathematicsBiometrika
- 1947
Rank correlation is one of the most useful statistical techniques available for the treatment of data arising in experimental and applied psychological research and has been extended to cover a very common problem in psychology.
A Study of Thinking
- Education
- 1956
A Study of Thinking is a pioneering account of how human beings achieve a measure of rationality in spite of the constraints imposed by bias, limited attention and memory, and the risks of error…
A summary and evaluation of alternative procedures for the construction of Vincent curves.
- Psychology
- 1938
The Logic of Scientific Discovery.
- Philosophy
- 1934
Each of these stages of a research project are evaluated to clarify the sources of ambiguities and uncertainties and suggestions are offered for reducing errors and speeding scientific progress.
T h e Logzc ofScienti$c Discovevy. London
- KENDALL,
- 1938
Abstract and concrete behaviour; an experi-A summary and evaluation of alternative procedures for the
- Psychol. Monogr
Quantitative aspects of the evolution of concepts
- Psychol. Bull
Abstract and concrete behaviour; an experi- A summary and evaluation of alternative procedures for the Psychol. Monogr., mental study with special tests. construction of Vincent curves
- KENDALL, 3%
- 1938