A Test of a Two-Stage Model of the Evaluation of Hypotheses from Quantified First-Order Predicate Logic in Information Use Tasks
480 adolescents and young adults between the ages of 12 and 29 years participated in an experiment in which they were asked to evaluate hypotheses from quantified first-order predicate logic specifying that certain classes of event were necessarily, possibly, or certainly not included within a universe of discourse. Results were used to test a two-stage model of performance on hypothesis evaluation tasks that originated in work on the evaluation of conditionals. The two-stage model, unlike others available, successfully predicted the range of patterns of reply observed. In dealing with very simple hypotheses subjects in this age range tended not to make use of alternative hypotheses unless these were explicitly or implicitly suggested to them by the task. This tells against complexity of hypothesis as an explanation of the reluctance to use alternative hypotheses in evaluating standard conditionals.