The Influence of Semantic and Pragmatic Factors in Wason's Selection Task: State of the Art

One of the cognitive processes, which has generated more research within the framework of the Psychology of thinking is human reasoninig. Through the history of the Psychology of reasoning one of the experimental task most frequently used to study how subjects reason and why make mistakes is the Wason's selection task or the four card problem (Wason 1966, 1968). This work presents the current state of the experimental research on this task, using as a common thread the empirical studies which have lightigtted the plasticity of reasoning towards semantic and pragmatic factor

Thinking about Wason´s THOG problem

This work was presented at 21st CONFERENCE OF THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY - ESCOP, celebrated in Tenerife, Spain (25-28 September 2019)Being able to create new information from already existing information is the essence of human reasoning. Modern Psychology of Reasoning is driven to know what kinds of strategies subjects use to make inferences and the variables which determine the conclusions reached. To that end, empirical investigation has used several experimental tasks and paradigms. This work centres on one in particular: The THOG problem. The fundamental objectives of it are: to present the main lines of empirical investigation developed around this task and set out the most relevant theoretical explanations which have analysed reasoning with the THOG. Likewise, the repercussion which the research has had on this hypothetico-deductive problem will be analysed, for the general study of human reasonin

The Wason Selection Task: Reasoning, Decision Making or Both?

This paper was presented at 20th Conference of the EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY-ESCOP, celebrated in the Universität Postdam, Postdam, Germany, 3-6 September, 2017.The aim of this study is to present some of the more recent lines of experimental research into Wason's selection task (Wason, 1966, 1968) and the main debates which have arisen from this. The paper concerns an experimental task which is considered essential in the study of the role of pragmatic variables in conditional reasoning (Evans, 2017). On a theoretical level, different explanations have been considered: Theory of Pragmatic Reasoning Schemas (Cheng & Holyoak, 1985), Social Contract Theory (Cosmides, 1989), Theory of Mental Models (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991) or The Dual Process Theory (Evans & Over, 1996). On an empirical level, numerous experimental studies have been designed in which the role of variables such as content, scenario, influence of prior knowledge, experimental instructions, etc. were analysed. The results of a large part of this work have highlighted the plasticity of reasoning toward factors related to empirical knowledge. Likewise, they have been the origin of new approaches in reasoning research which attempt to respond to such questions as: (1) “Why does facilitation occur largely when deontic as opposed to indicative versions are presented?”; (2) “Do the pragmatic aspects which are activated upon the presentation of deontic statements also occur with indicative statements?”; (3) “When subjects are faced with the task, do they decide which cards to select before thinking about them (Ball, Lucas, Miles & Gale, 2003; Evans, 1996; Evans & Ball, 2010; Lucas & Ball, 2005), or do they think before selecting? (Handley, Newstead & Neilens, 2009)”. In addition, research into the selection task has formed the basis for general theoretical debate, such as human rationality or the study of individual differences, and has contributed to the configuration of a new paradigm in the Psychology of Reasoning (Over, 2009; Elqayam, Bonnefon & Over, 2016

Heuristics, biases and the psychology of reasoning: state of the art

Part of this work was presented at 22nd Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology-ESCOP, held in Lille, France, August, 2022.Investigations on heuristics and biases have had a great impact on the study of reasoning and related higher cognitive processes, such as judgment and decision making. Specifically, the research in cognitive psychology of reasoning has revealed that people frequently activate mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to make inferences. These are non-logical strategies and could lead subjects to commit systematic deviations from the tenets of normative principles, that is, cognitive biases. The key objective of this paper is to present some of the most relevant theories on heuristics and biases in reasoning, focusing on the dual process theories of deduction. According to these theories, there are two kinds of thinking. Type 1, automatic, unconscious, implicit, fast and effortless and Type 2, reflective, controlled, conscious, explicit, slow and effortful. Much debate on these theories has emphasized on the relationship between both types of processes and the underlying factors that could triggered one or other. In this regard, different dual-process theories propose distinct answers to these questions. The results in the literature have registered that the likelihood of activation of Type 1 and Type 2 processes has important consequences on reasoning, both in experimental laboratory tasks and in everyday situations. Recent empirical investigations that have studied the critical role that intuitive and deliberative processes play in different professional areas are displayed. It is a key question that future research continues with the study of the underlying procedures that professionals activate for reasoning and decision makingS

Reasoning with the THOG problem: a forty-year retrospective

This article was published at Psychology. Valiña, M. D., & Martín, M. (2021). Reasoning with the THOG Problem: A Forty-Year Retrospective. Psychology, 12, 2042-2069. https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2021.1212124Being able to create new information from already existing premises is the essence of human reasoning. This paper focuses on one of the most important experimental tasks that have been used to study how people make inferences: the THOG problem (Wason, 1977, 1978; Wason & Brooks, 1979). It is a hypothetico-deductive reasoning problem in which subjects must formulate and test hypotheses from the comprehension of an exclusive disjunctive statement. Research on this task has shown that it is a difficult problem to solve and few people reach the logically correct answer. This paper presents some of the main theoretical explanations about people’s inferences with this task. From a general perspective, the Dual Process and the Hypothetical Thinking Theories and the Mental Models Theory are found. Some of the more specific proposals have focused on analysing the underlying mechanisms of the cognitive biases such as the Confusion Theory or the Non-Consequential Thinking. Moreover, a review of the empirical investigations on this meta-inference task is presented. Finally, some research on the THOG problem that provides important new clues on broader topics in the study of human reasoning is analyzedS

Reasoning with heuristics: theoretical explanations and beyond

Part of this work was presented at 22nd Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology - ESCOP, held in Lille (France), August 2022Human reasoners often tend to use simple and rapid strategies, heuristics, to make inferences. These are adaptative mechanisms of a non-logical nature. In some occasions they are very useful but in other cases they lead subjects to commit systematic cognitive biases. The purpose of this work has been to identify some of the main theoretical proposals on heuristics and cognitive biases in reasoning highlighting the framework of the Dual Process Theories. According to such theoretical perspectives, there are two types of thinking processes. Type 1 that is intuitive, automatic, unconscious, implicit and fast and Type 2 that is reflective, controlled, conscious, explicit and slow. This work ends with some brief considerations about the relationship between heuristics and cognitive biases and the study of individual differences in reasonin

La Psicología del Pensamiento en el Currículum del Psicólogo: Implantación del Plan Bolonia en la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela

El objetivo de este trabajo es señalar cómo ha ido evolucionando la materia de Psicología del Pensamiento en los planes de estudio de Psicología hasta la situación actual, con el plan Bolonia ya implantado en toda la universidad española. Para ello (a) revisaremos, en primer lugar, cuál era el papel de la Psicología del Pensamiento en la formación del psicólogo, antes de la revisión de los planes de estudios universitarios, (b) analizaremos los resultados de una experiencia piloto llevada a cabo en la Facultad de Psicología de la USC en el proceso de convergencia europea, durante los cursos 2003-2006, publicado por la ACSUG y, por último (c) proporcionaremos unas breves pinceladas sobre los cambios que se han introducido en la materia de Psicología del Pensamiento, tanto en la planificación docente como en la adaptación metodológica de la materia al crédito europeo, circunscribiéndonos -en este último apartado- a la Facultad de Psicología de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostel

El estudio del pensamiento: perspectiva histórica

Este trabajo fue presentado en el "XV Symposium de la SEHP. Elche, Universitas Miguel Hernández, Abril de 2002"The study of thinking has been influenced by the development of Psychology as a science. The different schools of thinking have helped to define the study of human thinking. The objective of this work is to analyse how the study of human thinking has evolved with reference to the history of Psychology, indicating the main lines of development which have caused the Psychology of Thinking to be primarily contextualised within the cognitive paradigm

The role of scenario, deontic conditionals and problem content in Wason´s selection task

This paper was presented at "The European Conference on Cognitive Science. Siena, Italy, October 1999"This experiment explores the influence of thematic content, the presence or absence of a scenario and the use of deontic or indicative framing of conditional rules on performance on Wason’s selection task. Logical performance was affected by the content used (permission rules were the best, neutral the worst and obligation rules intermediate) and by the use of scenarios. The scenario effect interacted significantly with the problem framing such that the presence of a scenario facilitate performance only when problems were framed in a deontic rather than indicative manner. The presence of scenarios did not interact with the problem content. These results are discussed in terms of pragmatic influences on reasoning, within the framework of the Dual Process Theory (Evans & Over, 1996

Pragmatic factors in conditional reasoning

* This paper was presented at the NINTH CONFERENCE OF THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY - ESCOP, celebrated at the University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany (September, 4-8, 1996). A posterior version of this work was published in J. Hoffmann & A. Sebald (Eds). Proceedings of the Ninth Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (p.142). Pabst Science Publishers (Lengerich)We investigated the importance of pragmatic factors in conditional reasoning. The performance of 54 subjects was examined, with the four basic inferences of Modus Ponens (MP), Denial of the Antecedent (DA), Affirmation of the consequent (AC) and Modus Tollens (MT), on the usual three-answer format. The empirical relation in the real world between antecedent and consequent of the premises on conditional arguments (probabilistic, deterministic and without relation) and scenario availability (available versus non-available), were manipulated. The results showed that: a) the scenario availability is not sufficient in itself to explain differences in performance, but affects the subjects' degree of confidence in their conclusions; b) there is an interaction between availability and logical structure of rules on correct performance. The results support the semantic theories of conditional reasoning and are not consistent with theories based on formal rules of inferenc