Stability of bias effects and of the thematic material effect in wason’s selection task
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15291/radovifpsp.2537Abstract
The aim of this paper was to demonstrate bias effects (Evans, 1989) and the effect of thematic material (Griggs and Cox, 1982) on reasoning in Wason’s selection task and also, to investigate the stability of diese effects in respect to experience got in the same and similar types of tasks. Bias effects influence some typical errors in reasoning, and the effect of thematic material is the phenomena that bias effects are stronger in the situation of abstract tasks solving than in the situation of concrete tasks solving. Different theories of deductive reasoning try to explain these phenomena. In the experiment the subjects' task was to select two cards out of four of them that describe states of affairs, to check the validity of a given conditional sentence. Both kinds of effects (bias and thematic material) were found and were shown to be stable, in respect to experience acquired in previous conditional syllogisms solving, and also in respect to the order of selecting tasks solving (abstract-concrete and vice versa). It seems that none of the theories of reasoning give a complete explanation of these phenomena, so all explanations were considered.
References
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