Our social and pragmatic experiences contribute to good performance on some versions of the selection task. Moreover, according to your text, training improves performance on judgment and reasoning tasks. Suppose you examined participants' performance on both the letter/number and beverage/age versions of the selection task before and after a course in formal logic. What might you predict with respect to the potential effect of the course on task performance?
A) The course should have no effect on performance on either version of the selection task.
B) The course should improve performance on both versions of the selection task to an approximately equivalent extent.
C) The course should improve performance on the letter/number version of the selection task to a greater extent than it should improve performance on the beverage/age version.
D) The course should improve performance on the beverage/age version of the selection task to a greater extent than it should improve performance on the letter/number version.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The letter/number version of the selection task is more dependent on formal logical reasoning than the beverage/age version, which is more influenced by social and pragmatic experiences. Therefore, the course in formal logic is more likely to improve performance on the letter/number version to a greater extent than it would improve performance on the beverage/age version.

Our Social and Pragmatic Experiences Contribute to Good Performance on Some