Wason Selection Task: Part 1

I recently read about a simple but clever logic puzzle, known as the “Wason selection task,” which is often claimed to be “the single most investigated experimental paradigm in the psychology of reasoning,” in the words of one textbook author.

Here’s the puzzle: You are shown four different cards, showing a 5, an 8, a blue card, and a green card. You are asked to test the truth of the following statement:

If a card has an even number on one side, then its opposite side is blue.

Question: Which card (or cards) must you turn over to test the truth of this statement?

I’ll start discussing the answer to this puzzle in tomorrow’s post. If you’re impatient, you can click through the interactive video above or else read the article where I first learned about this puzzle: http://m.nautil.us/blog/the-simple-logical-puzzle-that-shows-how-illogical-people-are (I got the opening sentence of this post from this article).


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