INSPECTION TIMES AND THE SELECTION TASK - ARE THEY RELEVANT

Five experiments are reported based upon Evans' (1996) inspection time paradigm in which subjects are required to solve computer-presented W ason Selection Task problems while simultaneously using a mouse to ind icate which card is currently under consideration. It had previously b een found that selected cards were inspected for considerably longer t han were non-selected cards, and this was taken as support for the exi stence of pre-conscious heuristics that direct attention towards relev ant aspects of a problem. The first experiment reported here fully rep licated this effect. However, by systematically varying the task forma t in subsequent experiments, the effect was found to diminish, disappe ar, or even reverse. The change in effect size and direction was not a ccompanied by any systematic variations in the subjects' card choices, indicating that the changes in task format had not altered the operat ion of the relevance-determining heuristics. On balance, it is suggest ed that the inspection time effect appears to be artefactual, and the inspection time paradigm therefore does not constitute satisfactory ev idence for the existence of pre-conscious heuristics.