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Related Experiment Videos

Relevance theory explains the selection task

D Sperber1, F Cara, V Girotto

  • 1Centre de Recherche en Epistémologie Appliquée, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France.

Cognition
|October 1, 1995
PubMed
Summary
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This study explains the Wason Selection Task by showing how people test rules. It reveals that understanding rule relevance and consequence accessibility significantly impacts reasoning performance.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Human Reasoning
  • Linguistics

Background:

  • The Wason Selection Task is a classic test of deductive reasoning, often showing lower-than-expected performance.
  • Previous explanations have focused on cognitive biases or domain-specific adaptations.
  • Relevance Theory offers a framework for understanding how people process information based on expected relevance.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose a general and predictive explanation for performance on the Wason Selection Task.
  • To demonstrate that performance variations are predictable based on rule interpretation and relevance.
  • To show that correct performance can be elicited across different contexts.

Main Methods:

  • Reanalysis of the Wason Selection Task using Relevance Theory.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Developing rule-context pairs to manipulate expectations of relevance and consequence accessibility.
  • Conducting four experiments to test the proposed explanation.

    • Main Results:

    • Subjects' selections are driven by inferring testable consequences in order of accessibility until relevance expectations are met.
    • Performance on the Wason Selection Task is contingent on the rule's context and the resulting interpretation of relevance.
    • Experimental manipulation of rule-context pairs successfully elicited correct performance.

    Conclusions:

    • The proposed explanation, grounded in Relevance Theory, provides a unified account of performance on the Wason Selection Task.
    • Cognitive processes related to relevance and accessibility are key determinants of reasoning accuracy.
    • The Wason Selection Task is a valuable tool for studying the cognitive mechanisms of human reasoning.