Chiesi Francesca, Gronchi Giorgio, Primi Caterina
Department of Psychology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
Can J Exp Psychol. 2008 Sep;62(3):188-91. doi: 10.1037/1196-1961.62.3.188.
Conjunctive probabilistic reasoning has been studied at different ages to ascertain whether the conjunction fallacy is due to a task demand misinterpretation. Such a misinterpretation might occur because a task that requires a comparison between a superordinate class A and a subordinate class A&B is mistakenly interpreted as requiring a comparison between the two complementary subordinate classes of A (i.e., A&B and A¬B). Children (7- and 10-year-olds) and adults were required to make conjunctive probability judgments about problems for which explicit objective probabilities were provided. The total number of A items was kept constant and the frequencies of the A&B and of the A¬B items varied across problems. When the number of A&B items was smaller than the number of A¬B items, the frequency of congruent responses increased with age. When the number of A&B items was greater or equal to that of the A¬B items, the frequency of correct answers decreased.
为了确定合取谬误是否源于任务需求误解，人们在不同年龄段对合取概率推理进行了研究。出现这种误解可能是因为，一个要求对上级类别A和下级类别A&B进行比较的任务，被错误地理解为需要对A的两个互补下级类别（即A&B和A&非B）进行比较。研究要求儿童（7岁和10岁）和成年人对提供了明确客观概率的问题做出合取概率判断。A项的总数保持不变，A&B项和A&非B项的频率因问题而异。当A&B项的数量小于A&非B项的数量时，一致反应的频率随年龄增长而增加。当A&B项的数量大于或等于A&非B项的数量时，正确答案的频率会降低。
