Pragmatic reasoning with a point of view

Cheng and Holyoak (1985) proposed that realistic reasoning in deontic contexts is based on pragmatic schemas such as those for assessing compliance with or violation of permission and obligation rules, and that the evocation of these schemas can facilitate performance in Wason's (1966) selection task. A number of investigators have since obtained evidence that the dominant pattern of selections for deontic rules can be reversed from the so-called “logical” pattern, p & not-q, to not-p & q, by manipulating subjects' perspective. We show that such selection reversals can be derived from the theory of pragmatic schemas given an analysis of the complementarity of rights (which underlie the permission schema) and duties (which underlie the obligation schema). The theory predicts that the not-p & q combination will be obtained equally often for two superficially different conditions: an ambiguous rule, nominally stated in the form if p then q, presented within a context that encourages mapping to a particular rule of the permission schema; and an unambiguous rule with the logical form if q then p that is mapped to a different rule of the same schema. In contrast, the p & not-q combination will be generated when the context encourages a mapping to a particular rule of the obligation schema. These predictions were confirmed in an experimental test. The status of alternative theoretical approaches is considered in light of the present findings and other relevant research.