On the Failure to Eliminate Hypotheses in a Conceptual Task¶
Wason, P. C. (1960). On the Failure to Eliminate Hypotheses in a Conceptual Task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12(3), 129-140.
Cited by¶
3 citations across 3 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Confirmation Bias
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Supported in partVerified against the publisher's abstract
Wason's own abstract reports subjects seeking confirming evidence alone and failing to test their hypotheses — the behaviour the claim calls confirmation bias — but it does not itself name the 2-4-6 task.
“The results showed that those subjects, who reached two or more incorrect conclusions, were unable, or unwilling to test their hypotheses.”
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Domain-specific¶
- Congruence Bias
- The classic demonstration is Wason's 2-4-6 task (1960): given three numbers that fit the unstated rule "any ascending sequence," subjects typically guess a more specific rule such as "even numbers increasing by 2" and then propose only confirming sequences (8-10-12, 14-16-18)
SupportedVerified against the source
- The classic demonstration is Wason's 2-4-6 task (1960): given three numbers that fit the unstated rule "any ascending sequence," subjects typically guess a more specific rule such as "even numbers increasing by 2" and then propose only confirming sequences (8-10-12, 14-16-18)
Mechanisms¶
- Counterexample Surface Scan
- Its strength is that it directly counters confirmation bias by manufacturing the disconfirming evidence attention would never volunteer — the successes that were never publicized, the failures that never became a story.
This sourceShows why deliberately seeking disconfirming cases is needed to counter a confirming-only test strategy that otherwise produces erroneous conclusions.
- Its strength is that it directly counters confirmation bias by manufacturing the disconfirming evidence attention would never volunteer — the successes that were never publicized, the failures that never became a story.
Verification¶
Does it exist? Confirmed. This work's DOI resolves to a registered record, which fixes its identity. That is all it fixes.
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