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Reasoning from unfamiliar premises: a study with unschooled adults
Maria Dias1, Antonio Roazzi, Paul L Harris
1Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil.
Psychological Science
|July 13, 2005
Summary
Adults with limited or no schooling can reason competently on unfamiliar topics when prompted to imagine them on a distant planet, overcoming typical empirical biases in reasoning tasks.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Anthropology
Background:
- Traditional research indicates unschooled adults exhibit empirical bias on reasoning tasks with unfamiliar premises.
- Recent studies suggest young children can overcome this bias with imaginative prompts.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if adults with limited or no formal schooling can improve reasoning on unfamiliar premises when prompted imaginatively.
- To assess the impact of prompts on empirical bias in adult reasoning.
Main Methods:
- Two groups of adults (unschooled and limited schooling) were tested on reasoning problems with unfamiliar or contradictory premises.
- Participants received either minimal prompts or prompts to consider premises as pertaining to a distant planet.
Main Results:
- Both adult groups initially showed empirical bias with minimal prompts.
- Explicitly prompting adults to imagine unfamiliar premises on a distant planet led to accurate reasoning and justified conclusions.
Conclusions:
- Adults with limited or no schooling are capable of abstract reasoning when provided with appropriate imaginative scaffolding.
- The ability to overcome empirical bias in reasoning is context-dependent and can be facilitated by specific prompts.