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Well, this should be the final segment
of this lecture, human success and failure in reasoning.
Well, philosophers such as Aristotle as well as
psychologists like Piaget have assumed
that humans are rational and will make correct deductions
based on the information that they're given.
However, we do not always reason appropriately.
And one very common way of illustrating this
is called the Wason card problem.
So this figure shows four, imagine four cards.
Each card has a letter on one side
and a digit on the other side.
You are to verify whether the following rule is true,
so it's like a logic problem.
If there's a vowel on one side, there's
an even number on the other side.
You must verify this rule by turning over
the minimum number of cards.
So you don't want to just flip over all four cards.
Flip over the minimum number that you really
need to flip over in order to make sure
that this rule is true.
So go ahead and pause the video.
Think this over.
You may or may not have seen this problem before.
I want you to think about an answer before you move on.
But I'll go ahead and move on now.
I'm about to reveal the answer here.
First I'll reveal what people typically choose.
So people typically flip over, of course, the E. 89% of people
do that.
These don't add up to 100% because people
are able to flip over more than one card if they wish.
But 89% flip over E, not that many for K or the seven.
A lot of people flip over the four.
Well, the correct answer is that you
need to flip over the E and the seven.
Only 15% of people flip over both of those.
And here are the reasons.
Card number one is the E. Yes, you have to flip it over.
You got to check what's on the other side.
If it has an even number on the other side,
then that one card supports the rule.
We turn it in order to confirm the rule.
A proof must have evidence on its side.
Card number two is the K. This card does not
need to be turned.
The rule says nothing about cards
with letters other than vowels.
It says nothing about what's going
to be on the other side of a consonant.
It only says what's going to be on the other side of a vowel,
so this card is totally irrelevant to the rule
in question.
What about card number three?
This is where it gets interesting.
This is the four.
I'm sorry, this is not as interesting.
It's the fourth card that's interesting.
Anyway, the four also does not need to be turned.
The rule restricts what may be opposite a vowel.
Again, just like card number two with the K.
The rule says nothing about what's
going to be on the other side of an even number,
so also irrelevant.
Card number four, the seven, this you have to flip over.
If the other side of the seven card has a vowel,
then you've falsified the rule.
The E must be turned as part of the process of confirming
the rule.
The seven must be turned in order
to try to falsify the rule.
Confirmation is only half of the process.
So think about this.
It's important to remember the Wason card test.
Well, is there a way of making this problem easier for people
by taking advantage of how we think
with our hunter-gatherer brains?
Well, one way to make it easier is
to make it more concrete and familiar.
More familiar and/or concrete versions of the Wason problem
are more easily solved, not exactly 100% but way better.
Like I said, the prior version I just showed you, 15%.
A way to get it up to 72% is do something like this.
Same exact logic, but it's just framed a little bit
differently.
We've learned about the importance of framing effects.
Well, here you go.
The cards in front of you have information
about four people sitting at a table in a bar,
and you're the bartender.
On one side of the card is a person's age.
On the other side of the card is what the person is drinking.
Here's the rule.
If a person is drinking beer, then the person
must be at least 21 years of age.
Select the card or cards that you definitely
need to turn over to determine whether they
are violating the rule.
People tend to see this as a lot easier.
People say, well, listen, I've got
to find out if the beer drinker is 21.
And I also need to find out if the person who
looks like they're 17, I need to find out what they're drinking.
So I see that they're drinking something.
I need to see if that's an alcoholic drink.
And that's absolutely correct in this case.
They know they don't have to worry about person
who is-- somehow they already know that the person is 22,
so you don't have to worry about that person.
You also don't have to worry about the person who's
drinking Coke, assuming it's really just
Coke, same exact logic as the typical Wason card task.
And the effect here might be due to what's
called case-based reasoning, which
is a theory that we reason about problems by remembering
similar problems like the availability heuristic
and how they were solved.
A bit more about this, what's called pragmatic reasoning
schemas are often used by us human beings
solving problems and making decisions.
It's a set of rules that were defined in relation to goals
that can be used to evaluate situations such as permissions
or obligations.
These are very important when you
think about evolutionary psychology, the fact
that we evolved as a social species.
We're very concerned about not violating social rules,
typically.
These encourage conclusions that are practical
in the real world, as opposed to these formal logic questions
that you sometimes get involving abstract concepts like letters,
and numbers, and things like that.
Those abstract formal logic problems
can lead to conclusions that are technically correct but not
really useful.
We all have schemas for permissions,
obligations, causations.
Prior knowledge activates the appropriate schema
to be applied to a problem, like that
bartender a problem I just showed you.
We all have an idea about the societal rules when
it comes to drinking alcohol, and so we're
able to apply that knowledge to solving the problem.
We don't have to think about it in terms of an abstract logic
problem.
We can just use our knowledge structures for that.
Abstract and unfamiliar problems couched
in terms of one of these schemas are solved more easily.
In other words, the basic Wason card task,
for example, framed as more of a familiar problem, the bartender
problem, makes it easier.
So a bit more about this evolutionary perspective here,
as I said, humans involved as social animals.
We're all great apes, but we're social apes
more so than the other great apes.
Social networks require us to help or punish other community
members based on violations of the rules or whatever,
following the rules.
Rules based on this principle are easier to understand.
Evolutionary psychologists propose at least two modules
that we have.
These might not be actual designated parts of the brain,
but still there's modular framework
is very important to understanding
how the brain works in terms of evolutionary psychology.
So we have this module for catching cheaters.
There's a great deal of evidence for that,
which helps us deal with that bartender problem
before, that version of the Wason card problem,
because as a bartender, you're looking for people who
are trying to break the rules, trying to cheat and drink
even though they're not old enough.
You don't want to lose your liquor license.
And dealing with precautions is also important to stay safe.
Don't go out at night.
Don't go venturing near this cliff.
Don't go over here because a tiger attacked someone
over there, that sort of thing.
However, critics regard this as post-hoc and therefore suspect.
A lot of times the argument against evolutionary psychology
is that, well, you can't do actual experiments because you
don't have a time machine.
So we have to do things other ways.
You can still run experiments, but you
have to do it a little bit different than other areas
of psychology because you're dealing
with issues that evolved in the past.
That's the end of lecture for this week,
and this is the end of the last lecture of this course.
From now on until the end of the course,
focus on studying for the final exam.
If you're not sure of the date for the final exam,
check the syllabus.
It's in there.
I promise.
And email me with any questions you might have.
Check doc sharing-- the exam review sheet
is either in there right now or will be very soon.
And the final exam covers all material since the second exam.
So it's not a cumulative exam.
It's going to, as usual, have 50 to 60 multiple choice questions
or so.
And just focus on studying for it.
It's worth quite a bit for determining your final grade.
So I look forward to seeing how you do there.
It's a pleasure teaching this course,
and I hope that you've enjoyed it and learned a great deal.
And look forward to, again, seeing
how well you do in the course.
And good luck.
Good luck on the final exam, And that's the end of this lecture.