The role of scenario, deontic conditionals and problem content in Wason's selection task

Abstract

This experiment explores the influence of thematic content, the presence or absence of a scenario and the use of deontic or indicative framing of conditional rules on performance on Wason’s selection task. Logical performance was affected by the content used (permission rules were the best, neutral the worst and obligation rules intermediate) and by the use of scenarios. The scenario effect interacted significantly with the problem framing such that the presence of a scenario facilitate performance only when problems were framed in a deontic rather than indicative manner. The presence of scenarios did not interact with the problem content. These results are discussed in terms of pragmatic influences on reasoning, within the framework of the Dual Process Theory (Evans & Over, 1996)