Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, hello, and welcome to The Rest Is Science. I am Michael Stevens.
And I am Hannah Fry.
And today, I really, really want to talk about a task, a test that basically everyone fails. I have a hunch that you won't fail this test, Hannah. Not so sure. We'll see. We'll see. Let me give you some context first, which I shouldn't normally do because in actual experiments where this task is given, people are just there to get their 10 bucks and go.
And I think that if you hype it up and you tell people, oh, you got to really think about it. Oh, it's so difficult. Oh, it's such a tricky one. Then... people will probably spend more time and get it right, okay? We can talk about all of that later, but let's just dive right into it.
This is a reasoning test, a very simple single question that involves four cards that was devised in 1966 by Peter Cathcart Wasson. And it is basically the test when it comes to studying the psychology of reason. All right. If you look into the history of our scientific study of human reasoning, you basically only find this test.
The test is called the Wasson Selection Task, and it was developed in 1966 by Peter Cathcart Wasson. Now, today it has been called the most intensely researched single problem in the history of reasoning. And my two favorite philosophers, researchers of reason, Mercier and Sperber, they call it – actually, they don't know what to call it. This is what they say.
Is this selection task to psychology of reasoning what the microscope has been to biology? Or is it rather as the Rubik's Cube has been to biology? Just kind of baffling and fun.
Not adding anything really of any merit.
So in Wasson's original test, only 10% of people got it right. If you look across all the studies that have replicated that since, you get a number closer to 4%. And that's not super surprising. There are difficult questions out there. But with some slight changes, we can make everyone get it right. And that is what is so strange. So let's begin with the original.
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Chapter 2: How does the Wason Selection Task challenge our reasoning?
Now on each, there is a letter on one side and a number on the other side. Two of the cards have their letter side up and two have their number side up. Now these are the cards that you see. You see a card with the letter A as in alpha, G as in giraffe,
That famous phonetic dictionary, yeah.
Oh, it's going to get worse, Hannah. The third card has a 7, as in 724. And the last card has an 8, as in 81. A-G-7-8. Okay, now, what I need you to do is indicate for me which of these cards you would need to turn over to judge whether the following rule is true. If there is an A on one side, there is a seven on the other.
To recap for those who are listening, you have four cards in front of you, letters on one side, numbers on the other. Okay, that's true. But you can only see one side of a card at a time. And what you're seeing is A, G, 7, 8. Which ones will you need to turn over to judge whether this rule is true? If there's an A on one side, there is a 7 on the other side.
Okay. That is what this episode is about. I mean, I think let's just get into it.
Let's get into it. So, take some time. Also, actually, I want to know how familiar you are with this, Hannah. Have you seen this before?
Okay, I have seen a version of this test before. And what I should tell you is that initially, I think I got it wrong.
Yeah, me too.
I also vaguely remember the trap that I fell into, but not completely. And I haven't seen this version. And so I'm going to have to think it through incredibly carefully.
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Chapter 3: Why do people struggle with abstract reasoning tasks?
Right. So can I ask some questions?
You can.
The 4% of people who do get it right, who are they then in the original formulation of the test or some variant of?
I haven't actually found a lot of good breakdowns on who those people are. Like literally in the literature, they're often called exceptional people.
Mm-hmm. I'm serious.
I'll show you the papers. They're like, if you get it right, you're either an exceptional person or a lucky guesser. There was one paper that said like the best, the most strong correlation is whether you have taken logic classes.
Okay. So it's sort of mathematically minded people.
Exactly. It's people who go, aha, yes, I am familiar with modus tollens and denying the antecedent. And here we go.
Do you want to give us a quick, quick rundown on modus tollens?
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Chapter 4: What differences exist between abstract and social reasoning?
That fit my rule. It's a secret rule I have up here. And then I'm going to just give you one example. And then I want you to start naming triples. And I will tell you yes or no, whether it fits the rule. Okay. Eventually, I want you to be able to tell me what you think the rule is.
Okay, cool.
Okay. So here is a triple that fits my rule. Two, four, six.
Okay.
All right. Now, I want you to start producing triples, and I will tell you if they fit the rule or not until you can guess the rule.
All right. 6, 8, 10.
Correct. That fits.
Okay. 7, 8, 10. That fits. 6, 6, 6. Nope. 6, 7, 8?
Yes.
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Chapter 5: How does confirmation bias affect our reasoning?
We're just a mess, Michael. We're all just a big sloshy mess with our squirty water computers.
That is true. And the only way to rise above that is for us to stay a big sloshy mess because the average of all of us winds up being better than one individual's opinion on their own.
Yeah. I mean, this is the wisdom of the crowd stuff, right?
That's right. And this is something that's really important to me. I really believe in it. I did an episode about lotocracy and how I would really love a government run by random people.
Like, rather than electing people, let's literally just be like, look, there's a lottery every four years, and you'll just get asked to come and be a member of Congress or Parliament or whatever, the House of Lords, randomly. You'll do your term, you'll get paid, there's housing for you, and I think that...
It would be amazing what would happen if you like took such a variety of views and had them all kind of average each other out as opposed to what we have now, which is like, hey, we're all kind of in this political class. Let's be leaders. We all kind of already feel the same way. Great, great, great, great.
Yeah, there's a superiority that comes with that. I think I remember reading something about this in Rory Stewart's book. Rory Stewart, of course, of Restless Politics fame, the lesser known Goldhanger podcast. But he is extremely keen on the idea of town halls, but also of civilian panels, civilian assemblies. Because I mean- Deliberation days. Yeah, deliberation, exactly, why not?
I mean, this is what we do in the judicial system. I mean, it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I also think that it's the best that we've got. And it does exactly what you're describing. It stops pretending.
that reason is some mathematically pure thing that we can march towards and instead accepts the messiness of human nature and that we are social creatures and social beings and we are totally perfectly tuned through an astonishing evolution to really prioritise that.
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Chapter 6: What role do counterexamples play in reasoning?
Well, there's a name for those kinds of exchanges, those kinds of words we say to each other. Back in the 30s, a researcher named Bronislaw Malinowski called these kinds of exchanges phatic communion.
Okay. Like you're breaking the bread together.
That's right. It's communion. It's breaking bread together. It's showing that I'm here. I acknowledge you. We're both humans. But it's communion done through phatic means, which means pertaining to language. So when we say things to each other like, oh, hey, how's it going? I'm not literally asking, tell me how things are going. In fact, a common response to, hey, what's up?
Or, hey, how's it going? Is, oh, hey, man. You're literally not answering at all. You're literally ignoring their question. An alien would find that really weird. But we understand that I wasn't actually asking you, what is up? Or, how's it going? I'm just saying, I acknowledge that you're here. We're two social beings who can communicate. And we just need to say hi to each other.
We just need to give each other a bit of a nod. That's it.
A little bit of communion.
A little bit of communion. And that's what the waiter does when they say, hey, have a great meal. You are automatically ready to exchange these things without conscious thought. And that's why we absentmindedly respond with you too.
I have heard from an American who moved to London, he found it extremely confusing when he first got here and people were like, you all right? You all right? He was like, what do you mean, am I all right? Am I all right?
Was it me that told you that? Because this was one of my biggest struggles when I first moved to the UK. Every time I entered a room, people would be like, you all right? And I'd be like, what's wrong? Why do you think something's wrong with me? Am I acting weird?
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