The Source Of Difficulties In THOG And The Facilitation Effects

Wason(1977)firstly used the exclusive disjunction to devise a reasoning task named THOG. He wanted to use this problem as a paradigm to study the process in solving deductive reasoning task. Not only do most experimental participants (>80%) fail to solve the problem, but most experimenters have also failed in their attempts to improve such performance without major change in problem presentation or structure. This article designed four experiments to study about the source of difficulties in THOG and the facilitation effects. In experiment l,we studied the effects of metacognitive regulation on task solving by asking the subjects to give reasons when making choices. We expected in this way could make subjects think more clearly to improve the performance. And we analyzed the reasons given to conceal the true source and provided the basic information for the next 3 experiments. In experiment 2,We changed the condition of experiment by providing paper and pen. In this way, we expected it would relieve the burden of working memory to facilitate the performance. In experiment 3,we changed the problem presentation according to the analysis in experiment 1.Reducing the difficulties and improving the performance to verify the hypothesis made in experiment 1.In experiment 4,we provided some cues. We asked the subjects to write down the possible combination. In this experiment, we also used the metacognitive regulation. We expected in the condition that having known the steps to solve the problem, the matecognitive regulation would improve the performance.The four experiments totally sampled 317 subjects and the results showed that:(l)In our experiments, we found the possible source of difficulties as follows: exceeding the limitation of working memory, confusion the positive exemplar with the two combinations possible written down and the difficulty in processing with the uncertain information.(2)Using the paper and pen could relieve the burden of working memory and got facilitation. In this experimental condition, the subjects major in science showed nosignificant difference in performance, but the subjects major in arts did show the significance.(3)Using the realistic theme could not facilitate the performance. Labeling could improve the performance significant. Emphasis on "and" could not facilitate the performance and made more type B errors.(4)In the condition of proving cues for the subjects, hypothesis-generation quest could not facilitate the performance. In the cuing condition, asking the subjects to give reasons when making choices could improve the performance significant...