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Related Experiment Videos

Why we are so good at catching cheaters.

J Fodor1

  • 1Center for Cognitive Science. Rutgers University, Center for Cognitive Science, Piscataway, NJ, 08855, USA. fodor@ruccs.rutgers.edu

Cognition
|May 18, 2000
PubMed
Summary

The Wason Selection task

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Linguistics

Background:

  • The Wason Selection task is often used to study reasoning.
  • Performance differences suggest a 'cheater detection module' evolved in humans.
  • This interpretation assumes deontic and indicative conditionals have identical structures.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To challenge the 'cheater detection module' hypothesis.
  • To propose an alternative explanation for Wason task performance asymmetries.
  • To investigate the structural properties of deontic conditionals.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of the structural properties of deontic and indicative conditionals.
  • Re-evaluation of existing Wason Selection task data.
  • Theoretical modeling of reasoning processes.

Main Results:

  • Deontic and indicative conditionals are not structurally identical.
  • Structural differences, not content, predict performance variations.
  • The 'cheater detection' effect is an artifact of task materials.

Conclusions:

  • The 'cheater detection module' hypothesis is unsupported by structural analysis.
  • Reasoning performance in the Wason task can be explained by linguistic structures.
  • Evolutionary explanations for cognitive architecture may be premature.

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