A Commentary on Mel Rutherford's 'On the Use and Misuse of the "Two Children" Brainteaser'

Maya Bar-Hillel

Discussion Paper Series from The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Abstract: Rutherford (2010) criticizes the way some people have analyzed the 2-children problem, claiming (correctly) that slight nuances in the problem's formulation can change the correct answer. However, his own data demonstrate that even when there is a unique correct answer, participants give intuitive answers that differ from it systematically -- replicating the data reported by those he criticizes. Thus, his critique reduces to an admonition to use care in formulating and analyzing this brainteaser -- which is always a good idea -- but contributes little to what is known, analytically or empirically, about the 2-children problem.

Pages: 8 pages
Date: 2010-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe
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Published in Pragmatics and Cognition, 18(1), 175-179.

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