(1) Department of Psychology, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan;(2) Department of Psychology, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan
Abstract:
We report two experiments testing a central prediction of the probabilistic account of reasoning provided by Oaksford and Chater (2001): Acceptance of standard conditional inferences, card choices in the Wason selection task, and quantifiers chosen for conclusions from syllogisms should vary as a function of the frequency of the concepts involved. Frequency was manipulated by a probability-learning phase preceding the reasoning tasks to simulate natural sampling. The effects predicted by Oaksford and Chater (2001) were not obtained with any of the three paradigms.
