Wason Task
This lab activity is inspired by one of the first studies of human conditional reasoning. It explores the idea that people tend to look for information that confirms a rule even when their job is to find out if a rule is not being followed.
Abstract Conditional Statement
The first part of this activity is similar to the one used by Wason (1966). There are four cards. Every card has a shape on one side and a letter on the other side. The rule is that if there is a square on the card, there must be a vowel on the other side of the card. Your task is to determine which cards you need to turn over to see if this rule is being applied for all cards. Card 1 has a blue triangle; Card 2 has the letter E; Card 3 has the letter C; Card 4 has a blue square. With that in mind, which cards need to be turned over to confirm the rule that “if there is a square on the card, there must be a vowel on the other side of the card”?
Concrete Conditional Statement
The second part of this lab activity presents a similar configuration but the examples in the cards are more concrete than abstract. At a local movie theater, they write the age of the person on the backside of their movie ticket after they have purchased the ticket. Your task is to make sure that no one under 18 gets into an R-rated movie. You are shown the tickets as they appear. They have written on them: 1) “R” Movie Ticket; 2) “PG” Movie Ticket; 3) “Person is 15”; 4) “Person is 40”. Which tickets need to be turned over to test and make sure that no one under 18 gets into an R-rated movie?
Abstract vs. Concrete Conditional Statements
People usually have more trouble with the abstract conditional statements compared to concrete conditional statements. To confirm the rule that “if there is a square on the card, there must be a vowel on the other side of the card” you need to turn over the blue square (to determine whether there is a vowel on the other side) and the letter C to confirm that this consonant does not have a square on the other side. If there were a square on the other side of the letter C, a consonant, it would confirm that the rule was not being followed. By turning over the letter E, a vowel, and finding a blue square that would just confirm the rule was being followed, not that it was not being followed. People usually do better on concrete conditional statements like in the movie ticket example. To make sure that no one gets into an R-rated movie, you would want to turn over the ticket with “R” on it to make sure that the age is not less than 18, and then you would also want to turn over the ticket with the “Person is 15” label to find out if “R” is on the other side and therefore the rule is not being followed.