4 ms·
I found this article fascinating: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.130.2186&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/down
by celrod 8y ago
I found this article fascinating:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.130.2186&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.130...
The jist is, people are extremely bad at basic logic. Unless it's really in their best interest within the context of the story (ie, catching someone cheating you) to be good at them.
It makes the difference between <50% of people getting the question right, vs >90%.
Presumably, everyone wants to get these logic puzzles correct. It just so happens that we're conveniently hard-of-reasoning except when it suits us.
For reference, the "logic puzzle" is Wason's selection task: which pieces of information do you need to test "if A then B"?
The choices (choose exactly as many as needed):
(1) A => ?, (2) !A => ?, (3) ? => B, (4) ? => !B?
- ForHackernews 8y agoOne theory is that the brain has evolved specific "modules" that are specialized to certain tasks (i.e. detecting cheaters in social scenarios) and we perform much better when we can rely on these brain-ASICs than when we have to use our general-purpose higher reasoning faculties. As far as I know, there's no conclusive evidence for reasoning modules, but there do seem to be analogous modules in our visual processing system.
- colordrops 8y agoI thought it was pretty well established that humans are wired to recognize faces. I don't have a reference though.
- ForHackernews 8y agoYeah, I think facial recognition, edge-detection, motion tracking, etc. are examples of fairly well-established "modules" of human vision. Unless there's been new research I haven't heard about, it's still an open question of whether there's similar biological specialization for, say, specific logic problems.
- nefitty 8y agoYou can try this logic game here: https://www.philosophyexperiments.com/wason/Default.aspx https://www.philosophyexperiments.com/wason/Default.aspx
- gnicholas 8y agoAn interesting test — thanks for posting! They really need to mix up the order of correct answers though. For me (spoiler alert), all of the questions had the exact same correct answers. Given the number of permutations, it seems highly unlikely that the test is randomized and I just happened to get this arrangement.
- function_seven 8y agoMine didn’t. Correct answers for me on Q1 we’re different than Q2&3. I think they put the “A” sides on the left and the “B” sides on the right, and only randomize between each pair.
- gnicholas 8y agoThanks for weighing in. I thought it was pretty silly that (for me) the answers were selections 2 and 4 straight through.