Cox & Griggs (1982)

What is the Wason Selection Task (WST)?

• classic in the study of thinking and decision-making. 

• logical reasoning puzzle

• When this study was originally conducted, the researchers found that on average less than 10% of participants chose the correct cards and argued that this is do to matching bias 

What did Cox & Griggs argue about the WST?

• may not really show how we make decisions because it is too abstract

• They proposed that when the context of a problem is familiar participants make decisions based on relevant past experience, rather than on the card’s logical status. (memory cueing hypothesis)

Aim

Investigate whether matching bias was less commonly used to solve the Wason Selection Task when the task was more personally relevant.

Participants

• 144 undergraduate psychology students of the University of Florida

Methodology

• randomly allocated to 1 of 6 conditions groups (in order to counterbalance the experiment)

Procedure (2)

• given a workbook with 3 problems (an abstract task, intermediate task, and memory cueing task)

• order of the problems were different for each group

• for each of the following statements, they were asked which card they would have to turn over in order to prove if the statements that were given in each task is true

Numerical Results (3)

• Abstract task: 5/144 (3%) solved the task correctly

• Intermediate task: 62/144 (43%) solved the task correctly 

• Memory cueing task: 87/144 (60%) solved the task correctly

Other Results (3)

• There was an increase in matching bias when the participants were given the abstract task first 

• There was an increase in a more rational approach when the participants were give the memory cueing task

• The more abstract and less relevant the task, the more likely that cognitive biases (shortcuts) would be used to solve the problem

Implication

The more abstract and less personally relevant the task, the more likely that cognitive biases would be used to solve the problem

Strengths (3)

Limitations (3)