A CONFLICT BETWEEN SELECTING AND EVALUATING INFORMATION IN AN INFERENTIAL TASK
Peter C. Wason, Philip Nicholas Johnson-Laird · British Journal of Psychology · 1970
An inferential task was investigated in which the subjects had to select which of four cards they needed to inspect in order to determine whether a rule was true or false. In one condition crucial information was concealed on the other side of the cards, and in another condition it was on the same side of the cards, but covered by a mask. A previous experiment suggested that subjects sometimes confused the notion of ‘the other side of the card’. But no difference was found between these two conditions. Only two out of the 36 subjects initially made the correct selection. An attempt was made subsequently to enable the subjects to correct their errors by asking them to evaluate the cards in relation to the rule. When a conflict occurred between the selection of the cards and their evaluation, some insight was gained. In other cases these two processes passed one another by, in spite of the fact that this involved self‐contradiction.