Sieve
Find the rule. Don’t fool yourself.
Three secret rules a day. Test anything you like, then pass the exam. Most people fool themselves.
How to play
- Every day there are three secret rules: Easy, Medium and Hard. Each is satisfied by some English words or whole numbers. You see three examples that pass.
- Test anything you like. Each probe tells you instantly whether it passes or fails. You have 8 probes, 10 on Hard.
- When you think you have it, take the exam: label six new items pass or fail.
- The rule is revealed, along with the rule you were probably thinking of instead. Your Sieve score is how fast you found each rule: the fewer probes you spend before calling it, the higher it is.
The experiment behind it
In 1960, Peter Wason presented people with the number sequence 2-4-6 and asked them to discover the rule that generated it by testing their own sequences. Most people formed a hypothesis—such as “the numbers increase by two”—and then proposed only sequences that confirmed it. As a result, they failed to discover that the actual rule was “any increasing sequence”.
Sieve turns this experiment into a daily game: three secret rules, a few attempts, and a score that rewards you for testing and challenging your own ideas.