#22 - Some researchers claim that people tend to gesture less

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Method. The correct answer choice is (C).

This stimulus has a complicated structure, and it's necessary to pay careful attention to breaking it down before moving onto the question itself. The author presents a claim of some researchers - that people tend to gesture less when articulating abstract instead of physical concepts. The author doesn't agree or disagree with that claim. Instead the author brings up the idea that the correlation (gesturing less when the concept is abstract, more when it's physical) isn't universal. On the surface, such an idea seems to weaken the researchers' claim, as it's much better for their claim if that correlation is universal. But the author thinks that the imperfection of that correlation is not sufficient reason to reject the claim. Even if the failure of that correlation to be perfect isn't great for the researchers, the author wants to emphasize that it's not entirely fatal to their claim. The author shows that by pointing out that people sometimes perceive supposedly abstract concepts as physical - for instance, "comprehension" is technically abstract, but people perceive it as analogous to the physical action of grasping. The point of that example is that an abstract concept may be perceived as physical, and thus may involve more gesturing than the researchers would expect for an abstract concept, but that's because of a misperception.

In short, counterexamples to the general tendency of people to gesture less when articulating abstract concepts aren't sufficient to prove the researchers' claim false.

The question type is Method of Reasoning. Our prephrase has to describe the abstract structure of the argument. The author presents a claim, shows that there exists some evidence that may weaken that claim, but provides an explanation of the facts that allows the claim to survive, so that the claim is not necessarily false just because there is some evidence against it.

Answer choice (A): The author does not think a correlation is universal at all. The author in fact points out that the correlation between gesturing less and more abstract concepts is not universal. This answer is describing something the author isn't doing, so it's incorrect.

Answer choice (B): There is no universal psychological generalization in the stimulus. As pointed out in the explanation for answer choice (A), the author does not think any generalization here is universal. Further, even the researchers in the first sentence are only said to claim that people "tend" to do something less in certain circumstances. That's not strong enough to be a universal generalization. So no one is appealing to any universal generalization in the stimulus.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. It suffices to prove this answer correct by noting that everything it states occurs in the stimulus. The author cites a psychological fact in the second sentence, after the word "because" - the author points out there that some people perceive certain abstract concept words as expressing physical actions. That's the author's premise (the word "because" being a premise indicator), so the author is citing that fact to prove something else. The generalization (not a universal one, but still a generalization of a tendency) is the claim of the researchers in the first sentence. The author is trying to show that their generalization is not defeated just because of the lack of universal correlation between abstract concepts and less gesturing. The fact that the correlation is not universal is apparently disconfirming evidence for the researchers. Thus, everything in this answer is a correct description of the author's argument.

Answer choice (D): The author does not advocate any explanation for a phenomenon. The author's concern is showing that apparently bad evidence is not as fatal as it first appears. But the author isn't one of the researchers! We don't know what explanation the author has. We just know that the author is trying to show that the researchers' claim can survive. The first three words of this answer then simply do not describe anything happening in this stimulus.

Answer choice (E): The author's argument involves showing that apparently bad evidence is not fatal for a certain kind of generalization. It's unclear, first of all, whether that generalization is "widely accepted" - it's claimed by "some" researchers. Further, the author never discusses whether that claim needs more evidence. The author thinks the counterevidence is not sufficient to defeat the claim. Does the claim need anything more to be believed? None of that is addressed by the stimulus.

[Robot1212]

Yea this one was a doozy for me because of the wording. I think this is what they mean but I'm not 100%.


Scientist: articulate abstract concept -> ppl gesture less than physical concept

Author conclusion : not sufficient to reject the claim b/c it is not universal
Premise: people comprehend words differently. example: comprehension

Basically, the author is agreeing with the scientists and giving evidence to why you cant reject their claim based on it not being universal.

C) So you need to know 3 things about this. what is the psychological fact. what is the generalization. and what is the apparently disconfirming evidence.

The psychological fact is NOT the researchers claim. It's the premise. The author states that as a fact.
The generalization is what the author is trying to prove - his conclusion
and the disconfirming evidence is the researchers claim and how it disconfirms the psychological fact.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

HI Robot,

A few things here. First, I don't see this as conditional because of the weak language in the first statement. It's saying that something tends to occur, not that they always occur in a specific way. For conditional reasoning, we want much more certain language.

Second, I disagree a bit with your characterization of the passage. The researchers' claim is the underlying generalization. You were correct on the conclusion. The apparently nonconforming evidence is implied by the statement that the generalization is not universal. The psychological fact is the bit at the end, where the stimulus talks about how people interpret words that appear abstract in a physical way.

Overall, great job with this tricky question!

[qiranz]

Hi,

I am having trouble understanding which part does "a generalization with apparently disconfirming evidence" refer to in the stimulus. And that is why I did not choose C even after broke down every sentence in the stimulus.
Here is my thought process to the question:
Structurally, the stimulus has three parts:
1. The first sentence is an OPA by some researchers.
2. The second sentence is author's conclusion.
3. The third sentence is the premise to support the conclusion.

Factually,
1. The first sentence introduces a correlation: gesture less articulate what they regard as abstract than concrete.
2. The second sentence contains author's statement that even if the correlation stated above is not the same for everyone (not universal), it doesn't prove that the correlation is wrong for that matter. Based on my understanding, the author implicitly refers to another group of people whose opinion is that the correlation is not the same for everyone does prove the correlation does not exist (rejected).
3. The last sentence is the evidence/fact the author uses as an example. My paraphrase to this sentence is that, even some people describe the correlation differently than others, their description still falls within the correlation. So this correlation still exists.

I quickly eliminated A because the argument is not about "the ambiguity of a word". I eliminated D and E as well because they are too far from being correct based on my familiarity of the scenarios they usually describe in the LSAT.
But then I can choose between B and C because I could not match the abstract language from either answer choice to the original argument.
For B, the author does appeal to something in the premise to support the conclusion. However, the supporting premise is more of a factual evidence rather than a universal generalization.
For C, the author is using a psychological fact, but the second part of the answer choice is really difficult for me to process. I couldn't find a reconciliation between a "generalization" and "apparently disconfirming evidence". To me, the premise perfectly supports the conclusion and I can't see why it is apparently disconfirming.
I also have a disagreement with the discussion above about the author actually agree with those scientists' claim about the correlation. The author just says that not being universal does not reject the existence of such a correlation. Correct me if I am wrong please! So instead of simply agreeing with the scientists, the author points out that even if the correlation is not "universal", the correlation still exists because people describe the correlation in various ways.

Lastly, for questions of method of reasoning, we need to identify the way the author makes her point. In this argument, the author uses an example to argue that the correlation can still exist even if it is not universal. However, C says that the author try to reconcile the generalization and the fact, which is different from my understanding of using the fact to support her conclusion, so I eliminated C and chose B eventually.

I appreciate anyone who read and answer my questions! Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

Excellent work, qiranz!

Here's how I understand answer C:

There is a generalization: people gesture less when referring to abstract concepts
There is some apparently disconfirming (contrary) evidence: It is implied that some people actually do gesture a lot when referring to ideas that are generally considered to be abstract, such as the concept of "comprehension."
The author cites a psychological fact: some people perceive words like "comprehension" to be physical acts rather than abstract concepts.

Based on that fact, the author concludes that the "apparently disconfirming fact" is not enough to discredit the original generalization. It could still be that people gesture less when discussing abstract concepts and more when describing physical concepts, and the exceptions could be cases where the typically abstract concept is perceived by that person as a physical concept.

That's a lot to deal with, but all the parts and pieces of answer C do match up nicely to the steps taken by the author in the argument?

So what's wrong with answer B? As you said, the author is not appealing to a universal generalization. The generalization is not their evidence, but is the thing they are trying to defend. Instead, it's the "psychological fact" that the author is appealing to/using as their evidence.

Tough question, sure to get more than a few heads spinning this late in the section!

[justlikemagic]

I got this wrong when I first did it, but on my review I actually noticed one thing that is mentioned a ton (to look out for) but I tend to forget to notice and that's how sometimes the four wrong answers can be somewhat similar. After reading through each answer choice and eliminating the wrong answers, I noticed that A, B, D, and E all use phrases with language that is 'supportive.' There's "appealing to" in A and B, "advocating an" in D, and "offering a reason for believing" in E. I was reflecting on what the argument was doing (before looking at the answer choices) and noted that the author does not necessarily support the researchers' claim, the author merely gives an example using "comprehension" to further their point that it's insufficient for someone to reject the researchers' claim merely because "such a correlation is far from universal." of course there are other issues with the wrong answers but off the bat I noted C was the only neutral answer, "citing a psychological fact" as well as the rest of C) being accurate.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi justlikemagic,

That's a great point. I think answer choice (E) has language the closest to neutral (other than the correct answer, of course). There are often multiple reasons to rule out answer choices in method questions. I agree here that understanding what the author is trying to do is one way to eliminate wrong answers. Here, as you note, the author isn't really taking a side or supporting either position. They are just stating that there isn't enough evidence to support that something is not universal.

Great job!

[mkarimi73]

Could we have an explanation as to why (A) can be safely removed? Is it because the author isn't claiming that the correlation is universal, but rather he/she is trying to explain why such a correlation should not be rejected outright?

This is really a matter of POE, correct?

[Bmas123]

Hi! I did not pick C because I was thrown off by "phsychological fact." What exactly is this referring to in this problem and do you have any tips for not getting tripped up by that kind of wording in the future?

[atierney]

The psychological fact here, which is not explicitly stated, is the differing ways individuals may have in classifying words. The idea is that you can't deny the original claim by showing that gestures for any given word or set of words vary widely among individuals or groups of individuals (such as engulf or comprehension), because individual understandings of the words themselves may differ with respect to level of abstraction.

Basically, the "psychological fact," is the subjective understanding of words, which can be either concrete (even for an abstract word) or abstract (even for a concrete word (the "apple" of my eye meaning admiration, etc).

Let me know if you have further questions on this.