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Perspective Effects in Nondeontic Versions of the Wason Selection Task

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Perspective Effects in Nondeontic Versions of the Wason Selection Task Memory & Cognition 2000, 28 (3), 396-405 Perspective effects in nondeontic versions ofthe Wason selection task ALEXANDER STALLER, STEVEN A. SLOMAN, and TALIA BEN-ZEEV Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island Perspective effects in the Wason four-card selection task occur when people choose mutually ex­ clusive sets of cards depending on the perspective they adopt when making their choice. Previous demonstrations of perspective effects have been limited to deontic contexts-that is, problem con­ texts that involve social duty, like permissions and obligations. In three experiments, we demonstrate perspective effects in nondeontic contexts, including a context much like the original one employed by Wason(1966, 1968).Wesuggest that perspective effects arise whenever the task uses a rule that can be interpreted biconditionally and different perspectives elicit different counterexamples that match the predicted choice sets. This view is consistent with domain-general theories but not with domain­ specific theories of deontic reasoning-for example, pragmatic reasoning schemas and social contract theory-that cannot explain perspective effects in nondeontic contexts. Are the procedures that people use to reason domain cedure. We propose, in agreement with existing domain­ specific or domain general? Much ofthe support for the general theories, that perspective effects in both deontic view that reasoning is domain specific comes from work and nondeontic contexts depend on the elicitation of on the Wason selection task (WST; Wason, 1966, 1968). counterexamples. A number oftheories propose that people's reasoning in In the original abstract version of the WST, partici­ this task depends on whether the task uses deontic con­ pants are presented with four cards. On one side ofeach tent or not-that is, whether it asks people to reason about card is a letter, and on the other side ofthe card is a num­ a social rule concerning duty or obligation or some other ber. Participants are then given a conditional rule of the kind ofrule. One type ofevidence that appears to suggest form "If p then q," for example, "If there is a vowel on that deontic reasoning is special involves perspective ef­ one side ofthe card (p), then there is an even number on fects, demonstrations that choice in the WST varies with the other side (q)." The participants' task is to check the perspective adopted during task performance. With whether the cards conform to this rule by choosing one one exception (Fairley, Manktelow, & Over, 1999), these or more cards to turn over. Each card has either p or not­ demonstrations have been limited to deontic contexts p on one side and either q or not-q on the other. Partici­ (Gigerenzer & Hug, 1992; Holyoak & Cheng, 1995; pants are shown four cards, showing p, not-p, q, and not­ Manktelow & Over, 1991; Politzer & Nguyen-Xuan, q, respectively. People tend to select the p and q cards or 1992). To account for these effects, theorists have posited just the p card in this task. that performing this task in a deontic context activates However, people predominantly select the p and not-q specialized domain-specific reasoning processes that elicit cards for a few rules embedded in deontic contexts, a different pattern of response than does reasoning in where the rule is expressed as a social obligation or a right other contexts (e.g., Cheng & Holyoak, 1985; Cosmides, (see, e.g., Cheng & Holyoak, 1985; Griggs & Cox, 1982; 1989; Oaksford & Chater, 1994). Johnson-Laird, Legrenzi, & Legrenzi, 1972). One exam­ The objective ofthis paper is to show that the "deon­ ple involvesthe "drinking-age rule" (Griggs & Cox, 1982): tic" response pattern can be obtained in nondeontic con­ "Ifa person is drinking beer then that person must be over texts. Unlike Fairley et al. (1999), whose demonstration of 19 years of age." Participants were presented with four nondeontic perspective effects concerned conditional cards that showed "drinking beer," "drinking Coke," statements about causal relations, we aim to elicit per­ "22 years old," and "16 years old," respectively. They were spective effects by choosing conditionals without regard asked to assume the perspective ofa police officer on duty to the type ofrelation they express, other than that it not who wants to determine whether the drinking-age rule has be deontic. Such a result would suggest that Wason task been violated. In contrast to most other versions of the performance can be attributed to a domain-general pro- WST, this context caused the majority of participants to select the p and not-q cards: "drinking beer" and "16 years old." Results ofthis sort have motivated theories that give Wethank Amit Almor, Philip Johnson-Laird, Ken Manktelow, David a special place to deontic reasoning (e.g., Cheng & Holy­ Over, and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on prior drafts. Correspondence should be addressed to A. Staller, Austrian Research oak, 1985; Cosmides, 1989; Oaksford & Chater, 1994). Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Schottengasse 3, A-101O Vienna, But selection ofthe p and not-q cards has been demon­ Austria (e-mail: [email protected]). strated in nondeontic contexts as well (Almor & Sloman, Copyright 2000 Psychonomic Society, Inc. 396 NONDEONTIC PERSPECTIVE EFFECTS 397 1996; Green, 1995; Green & Larking, 1995; Sperber, Cara, & Over, 1991; Politzer & Nguyen-Xuan, 1992). A per­ & Girotto, 1995). For example, Almor and Sloman used spective effect occurs whenever participants are induced the quality-control rule "Ifthe product breaks then it must to select either the p and not-q pair ofcards or the not-p have been used under abnormal conditions" and found and q pair by varying the perspective from which they that people were significantly more likely to choose the choose. For example, Manktelow and Over presented p and not-q cards (the product broke and it was used participants with the following rule, a statement made by under normal conditions) despite the clearly nondeontic a mother to her son: "Ifyou tidy your room then you may but rather causal nature ofthe rule. This result may have go out to play." Ifparticipants were instructed to take the occurred because the quality-control context is sufficiently son's perspective and to check whether the mother vio­ familiar that it elicits counterexamples-products that are lated the rule, they tended to select the p ("tidied the bad despite correct usage. These counterexamples have room") and not-q ("did not go out to play") cards. How­ the right structure: They match the p and not-q cards. ever, ifparticipants were asked to take the mother's per­ Sperber et al. (1995) provided a "recipe" for creating spective and to check whether the son had violated the nondeontic versions ofthe WST that lead to "p and not­ rule, they opted for turning the not-p ("did not tidy the q" selections, on the basis of relevance theory (Sperber room") and q ("went out to play") cards instead. & Wilson, 1995). Relevance theory rests on two princi­ Perspective effects have been construed as evidence in ples: The first (cognitive) principle states that human favor oftheories that assume special domain-specific de­ cognition is geared toward the maximization of rele­ ontic reasoning processes. To explain perspective effects, vance. Relevance increases with the cognitive effect re­ these theories assume that the interpretation of a social sulting from the processing ofinformation and decreases obligation or right can be reversed depending on the per­ with the effort required to process it. The second (com­ spective the reasoner takes (such as pretending to be a child municative) principle states that every utterance conveys or a parent). The two major theories making this assump­ the presumption that it is relevant enough to be worth the tion are pragmatic reasoning schemas and social contract addressee's effort to process. The recipe consists in for­ theory. These theories are described in more detail next. mulating a context in which knowing whether there are "p and not-q" cases (i.e., counterexamples) has a greater Pragmatic Reasoning Schemas cognitive effect than knowing whether there are "p and Cheng and Holyoak (1985) proposed that reasoning on q" cases. Further, the processing effort for representing the WST is based on pragmatic reasoning schemas. A prag­ the combination ofp and not-q must be lower than the ef­ matic reasoning schema is an abstract knowledge struc­ fort required to represent the combination ofp and q. For ture consisting of a generalized set of context-sensitive example, participants were told that the leader of a sect rules defined in relation to classes ofgoals. The pragmatic was accused ofcreating an elite group of "virgin-moth­ reasoning schemas assumed to underlie reasoning on de­ ers." The leader claimed: "Ifa woman has a child she has ontic versions ofthe WST involve permission and oblig­ had sex." In this context, "p and not-q" cases (virgin­ ation (Holyoak & Cheng, 1995; Politzer & Nguyen-Xuan, mothers) are easy to represent, and knowing whether 1992). The permission schema is applied to all condi­ there are virgin-mothers in the sect has a greater cogni­ tionals ofthe type "Ifan action is to be taken, then a pre­ tive effect than knowing whether there are normal moth­ condition must be satisfied," and includes four rules: ers. As predicted by relevance theory, participants pre­ PI: If the action is to be taken, then the precondition must dominantly selected the p ("has children") and not-q ("did be satisfied. not have sex") cards. Green (1995; Green & Larking, 1995) elicited "p and P2: If the action is not to be taken, then the precondition not-q" selections in nondeontic versions ofthe WST by need not be satisfied. using an "externalization procedure": First, participants P3: If the precondition is satisfied, then the action may be had to identify the counterexample to the rule; in a sec­ taken.
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