Egoistic Reasoning 'In Time' in the Selection task

摘要

This paper analyzes a pool of well-known experiments that test variations in the Wason selection task with respect to two variables in particular. "Egoism", is implied when students are shown words like "you are", and "implied temporal sequencing" when one proposition must occur before the other temporally. Both variables are found to correlate well with the deterioration of performance in the sorted tests. An experiment follows to test the effects of these two variables with the abstract case that has been highly resistant to change. A significant variation in the distribution of the responses is noted with p < .004. This raises a question on the directionality of thought, the effects of the egoistic "I" and its relationship with time.