Another look at eliminative and enumerative behaviour in a conceptual task

Abstract

There are currently two competing interpretations of hypothesis testing in Wason's (1960) 2-4-6 task: the positivity heuristic (Klayman & Ha, 1987; 1989) and the counterfactual strategy (Farris & Revlin, 1989a; 1989b). We argue that an extension of the counterfactual strategy—the iterative counterfactual strategy—should be preferred over the positive test heuristic because it may resolve the paradox of why subjects succeed on this task while apparently adopting an irrational strategy. We argue that an account of hypothesis generation is required to explain these data and that only the counterfactual strategy is of help here. We discuss the strategy and the 2-4-6 task in the light of contemporary history and philosophy of science, highlighting the rational basis of the strategy and some unrealities of the task.

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