The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable · chapter 3 · id the-black-swan-c3-03-the-wason-selection-task-1966-
“The Wason selection task (1966) demonstrates that fewer than 10% of subjects can correctly identify which cards to turn over to test a conditional rule, revealing a deep human tendency toward confirmation rather than falsification.”
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Wikipedia: Wason Selection Tasksource alive
In Wason's original study, not even 10% of subjects found the correct solution. Meta-analytic evidence indicates approximately 19% of participants across numerous studies select the correct cards (p and not-q) on the abstract version.
Wason (1960), 'On the Failure to Eliminate Hypotheses in a Conceptual Task', Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychologypaywalled · manual check queued
Wason's original 1960 paper (preceding the selection task) established that subjects preferentially seek confirming evidence rather than attempting falsification.
Evans (1998), 'Matching Bias in the Wason Selection Task Reconsidered'paywalled · manual check queued
Across decades of replication, abstract Wason selection task performance remains low at 10-25%. However, Evans argues the errors reflect matching bias rather than pure confirmation bias.
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