Peter Wason and His Famous Test

from Wikipedia

Some interesting overview and history of the 'deceptively easy' Wason Selection Task  in today's Nautilus:
http://nautil.us/blog/the-simple-logical-puzzle-that-shows-how-illogical-we-are

Perhaps this test and its implications, by a man who treated "reasoning as an enigma" is even extra pertinent in a week that people are engaged in especially important political decision-making! From his 2003 obituary: “His aim was to reveal a surprising phenomenon—to show that thinking was not what psychologists including himself had taken it to be.”

[If by any chance you're not familiar with the task, the article contains an interactive video you can play with.  And it's a fun test to run by students and adults at various levels.]

Also, as with many puzzles I enjoy, language or words, in addition to strict abstract reasoning, potentially come into play here, as the article indicates.

[ADDENDUM:  just realized, this article is a RE-run of a piece Nautilus ran in May 2015]

A Happy Birthday and a Little Logic

via Ripounet/WikimediaCommons

For starters, I'll just note that this is a verrrry Memorial Day indeed (apart from the American Holiday)... it is Raymond Smullyan's 96th birthday... and THAT is cause for celebration (as well as a day off), be you a knave or a knight!
In Dr. Smullyan's honor I'll offer this thought-provoking question:  IF Ray confided in you that he was a pathological liar... would you believe him?...

Moving on, as a professional logician, I'm sure Ray appreciates the "Wason Selection Task," a simple-seeming reasoning test that most of you have likely seen in one form or another, and that most people err on the first time they attempt it (picking 2 cards out of 4 to confirm an initial supposition). But do people mess up because of the logic involved or simply because of the wording? A wonderful piece on the Wason test from Nautilus tries to address that question:

http://nautil.us/blog/the-simple-logical-puzzle-that-shows-how-illogical-people-are