The Relationship between Wason’s Selection Task and Working Memory

摘要

沃森实验中，推理过程受到直觉/分析思维方式的影响，其中工作记忆会抑制非理性偏差，也就是在一定程度上抑制直觉的思维方式，帮助个体在推理中做出更加正确的选择。本文首先回顾了当前研究中对工作记忆与条件推理之间关系的研究，结果发现工作记忆是否会影响条件推理仍然存在争议，本文在此基础上选择经典的条件推理的范式——沃森实验以及扩展的沃森实验为例，通过实验考察工作记忆与沃森实验之间的关系，进而推测工作记忆对条件推理的影响。研究中选取未接受逻辑训练的大学生为被试，要求被试完成沃森实验及其扩展实验，同时研究者使用运算–词汇测量法对工作记忆容量进行测量，最后采用PID (修订版)量表对被试的分析/直觉的思维方式进行测试。结果发现，在经典的沃森实验中，接受MT (modus tollens，否定后件式)被试的工作记忆容量显著大于拒绝MT (modus tollens，否定后件式)的被试；同时，我们发现，接受MT (否定后件式)的被试的直觉得分显著低于拒绝MT的被试。但是，在沃森扩展实验中我们并没有发现各种选项之间存在显著差异。从结果我们看到，经典的沃森实验受到工作记忆的影响，但是沃森扩展实验并没有受到工作记忆的影响。 The reasoning in the “Wason’s Selection Task” is affected by the intuition/analytical mode of thinking, in which working memory will suppress the irrational deviation and help the individual reasoning and get the right choice. In this article, we reviewed the research of the relationship between working memory and conditional reasoning, and there still remained controversial in whether working memory affected the conditional reasoning or not. The undergraduates selected for this study were tested using classical conditional reasoning Paradigm, Wason experiment, to examine the relationship between working memory and conditional reasoning. In this study, we were using the operation-vocabulary measurement method to measure the working memory capacity, and the PID Scale as auxiliary measurement for intuition/analytical mode of thinking. The results showed that the working memory capacity of the subjects who accepted MT (Modus Tollens) is significantly greater than those who refused MT, but the intuition scores of the subjects who accepted MT is much lower than those who refused MT.