Transfer of conditional reasoning: Effects explanations and initial problem types

Abstract

Transfer of reasoning on Wason’s (1966) selection task was explored in three experiments. Experiment 1 tested the effects of problem explanations and verbalization instructions on transfer from abstract or thematic problems to abstract problems. Explanations facilitated transfer only when the initial problems were abstract; verbalization did not produce transfer between problems. Experiment 2 explored the effects of problem similarity and explanations on transfer between problems. Although transfer occurred following explanations, no effect of similarity was found for thematic problems. In both of these experiments, the thematic effect (Wason & Shapiro, 1971) was observed. Experiment 3 examined the effects of explanations to abstract or thematic problems on transfer to subsequent abstract or thematic problems. Transfer of reasoning occurred from both initial problem types, particularly to problems of the same type; however, transfer occurred to a greater extent from abstract problems than from thematic problems. The results are discussed in terms of problem similarity and Cheng and Holyoak’s (1985) pragmatic reasoning schema hypothesis.