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My half‐sister is a THOG: Strategic processes in a reasoning task
Author(s) -
Smyth Mary M.,
Clark Steven E.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1986.tb02002.x
Subject(s) - sister , statement (logic) , psychology , task (project management) , realism , content (measure theory) , problem statement , social psychology , cognitive psychology , epistemology , mathematics , philosophy , management science , law , management , political science , economics , mathematical analysis
Five experiments are reported in which a naturally occurring category was used in a version of Wason's THOG task to investigate both the role of realism and the use of strategies in the approach to complex reasoning problems. The category was that of half‐sister which is defined by exclusive disjunction of parents (my mother or my father but not both). Realism improves problem solution only if there is no statement of the disjunction and no indications that there are two unknowns within the problem. However, the full exclusive disjunctive half‐sister task is as difficult as the THOG itself, although both the content items and the rule which relates them are realistic ones. The source of the difficulty is found to be the existence of two unknowns. Subjects do not naturally use hypothesis generation and testing in this situation, and when they are asked to do so they refuse to accept the solutions which are produced. The strategy of ‘supposing’ one possible combination of unknowns and then the other is contra‐indicated by the problem statement, and although realist content helps with hypothesis generation it is not sufficient to induce the appropriate strategy.