Discussion De-focusing on the Wason Selection Task: Mental Models or Mental Inference Rules? A Commentary on Green and Larking (1995)

Abstract

Mental models theorists have proposed that reasoners tend to “focus” on what is explicit in their mental models, and that certain debiasing procedures can induce them to direct their attention to other relevant information. For instance, Green and Larking 1995; also Green, 1995a facilitated performance on the Wason selection task by inducing participants to consider counterexamples to the conditional rule. However, these authors acknowledged that one aspect of their data might require some modification to the mental models theory. This research is discussed here, and it is suggested that the results may be better accommodated by mental inference rules theory than by mental models theory.