Psychological Test

[OllieFranz]

I'll go ahead and flip all four and check my data with your assertion and see if it jives.

A number of people said this or the equivalent. That's fine if the entire deck is four cards, but if the "deck" is every bird on earth, it makes more sense to determine exactly what you are looking for (a potential falsification of the statement) and then ignore those birds (white birds and non-swans) that can not advance you to your goal (a non-white swan).

 

[bhsmte]

A number of people said this or the equivalent. That's fine if the entire deck is four cards, but if the "deck" is every bird on earth, it makes more sense to determine exactly what you are looking for (a potential falsification of the statement) and then ignore those birds (white birds and non-swans) that can not advance you to your goal (a non-white swan).

Correct, that would require a little more objective thought and a desire for efficiency, vs looking at every card. Both yield the same results, one is just more efficient.

The purpose of the test, is more towards determining the potential for confirmation bias and not examining the situation to it's fullest.

 

[Zosimus]

interesting, also, that at least 101 of 128 university students originally given the test, got it wrong.

ETA: Second source stated that only 4% got the right answer. Also read about a followup test they used with alcoholic drinks and drinking age--same problem, essentially-- and 72% got it right, since we are used to finding exclusions when it comes to underage drinking. Pretty interesting.

Not that surprising to me, I'm afraid. There are large numbers of students at university who cannot do basic logical problems. Additionally, I think we can find large numbers of people on this website who are in the same boat.

 

[AirPo]

Good catch

I think the D was a better catch.

 

[Elendur]

I think the D was a better catch.

Thanks too bad it wasn't guaranteed to have one letter and one number per card