Slide 14:

WHAT HAS THE WASON PROBLEM TAUGHT US?

The controversy continues among those who hold that permission is important, those who
focus on cheating, and researchers who have proposed other explanations for the results of the
Wason task. Evidence has been presented for and against each of these proposed mechanisms
We are left with the important finding that the context within which conditional reasoning
occurs makes a big difference. Familiarity is not always necessary for conditional reasoning
even permissions and cheating might affect conditional reasoning
◽Example of how different researchers come to different conclusions about the same data
◾The workings of the mind must be observed from behavioral observations
◾Like Donder’s experiment from Chapter 1
Slide 15:
Inductive Reasoning: Reaching Conclusions from Evidence
In inductive reasoning, premises are based on observation of one or more specific cases, and
we generalize from these cases to a more general conclusion. In inductive reasoning,
conclusions are suggested, with varying degrees of certainty, but do not definitely follow from
premises. This is illustrated by the following two inductive arguments:
Observation: All the crows I’ve seen in Pittsburgh are black. When I visited Washington, DC, the
crows I saw there were black too
Conclusion: I think it is a pretty good bet that all crows are black.
Observation: Here in Tucson, the sun has risen every morning.
Conclusion: The sun is going to rise in Tucson tomorrow.
Notice there is a certain logic to each argument, but the second argument is more convincing
than the first. Strong arguments result in conclusions that are more likely to be true, and weak
arguments result in conclusions that are not as likely to be true.
A number of factors can contribute to the strength of an inductive argument. Among them are
the following:
• Representativeness of observations
• Number of observations
• Quality of the evidence
Slide 16:
Although our examples of inductive reasoning have been “academic” in nature, we often use
inductive reasoning in everyday life, usually without even realizing it. We make a prediction
about what will happen based on our observations about what has happened in the past, we
are using inductive reasoning. It makes sense that we make predictions and choices based on
past experience, especially when predictions are based on familiar situations. Think about how
time-consuming it would be if you had to approach every experience as if you were having it for
the first time. Inductive reasoning provides the mechanism for using past experience to guide
present behavior.
When people use past experience to guide present behavior, they often use shortcuts to help
them reach conclusions rapidly. These shortcuts take the form of heuristics—“rules of thumb”
that are likely to provide the correct answer to a problem, but are not foolproof. People use a
number of heuristics in reasoning that often lead to the correct conclusion, but sometimes do
not. Harish describe two of these heuristics, the availability heuristic and the representative
heuristic.