Factual question about the Wason Four Card Task, with a personal motivation...

Factual Questions
1

Today, as part of a short presentation on using technology in the classroom, I presented to a group of faculty the Four Card Task.

Read that before you read the rest, for in what follows there be spoilers.

In the version I gave, the correct answer involves turning over two cards–one with a vowel on the top side, one with an odd number on the top side. This is to determine whether the cards are following the rule “If vowel on one side, then even on the other”. (For the record, the cards in my example had the following showing on their top faces: A, K, 2, 5.)

At the end of this presentation (the real point of which was to show the faculty some things that can be done using the classroom tech we have here) one of our Psychologists piped up and insisted I’d given the wrong answer, and that you only have to reveal one card, not two. She insisted that Wason’s original paper was a “one card task” and not a “two card task” as she put it.

I couldn’t correct her logic, and she was insisting I had the very point of the thing wrong.

Right there in front of everyone she did this. :mad: And of course I’m just an MA in Philosophy, she’s a PhD in Psychology, so since many of the faculty were still a bit sketchy on the explanation of the correct answer, I imagine many of them were simply relieved to hear that the real expert was on their side. Completely railroaded my presentation and made me look foolish besides.

Well anyway, so much for the “personal motivation” part. Here’s the factual query:

The earliest paper I can find on the four card task is from 1966. Is there an earlier one? Is she right that in the original paper, the task discussed had as the correct answer that you just turn over a single card, not two cards? If so, I’ll explain to her that she’s right in a way–I was wrong about how the original task went. But mine fits the subsequent papers, and the logic of my presentation was correct. If not, then I’ll explain to her that how dare she? Well okay, in either case, I will probably do nothing. But I want to know whether there’s any truth to her claim.

2

Her logic is flat-out wrong.

The statement to disprove is, “If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side.”
[ul]
[li]Flipping over the “K” in your example is pointless: it’s not a vowel.[/li][li]Flipping over the “2” is also pointless: what’s on the other side can’t refute the statement.[/li][li]Flipping over the “A” could disprove the statement if there’s an odd number on the other side.[/li][li]Flipping over the “5” could disprove the statement if there’s a vowel on the other side.[/li][/ul]

There are clearly two cards that could disprove the statement.

ETA: Perhaps she’s confused, and trying to say that if you flip over the “A” and it has an odd number on the side, there’s no need to flip over the “5”?

3

Presumably, if she’s correct, then the original test was structured differently from the one in the OP.

4

The only other thing that would make sense is if she thought that the statement was either always false or always true. In that case, turning over either card would confirm whether it was true or not.

5

Yes, I’m not worried about who had the logic right. What I’m wondering is whether it’s possible there really was some original version where the question was different and so the answer did involve just flipping over a single card.