Q3 - Humorous TV advertisements

[agersh144]

I choose C both on test day and on blind review and am absolutely baffled how A is correct.

H > AA > HA > MC
E > MC
_______
∴ E > H

Is this diagramed correctly and can you please break down A and C for me and the logistics of how you break it down on test day?

Thank you for your consideration

[christine.defenbaugh]

agersh144, I'm glad you posted this question! This brings up an often confused issue with conditionals!

Before we dive too far into the details, I'd like you to take a step back and think about what answer choice (C) is really saying. If an argument took some necessary condition for effectiveness, and then mistakenly concluded that the condition were sufficient, what would the conclusion look like?






It would probably read: All things that have X condition are effective.

In other words, effectiveness would be the RESULT of a conclusion conditional! Whereas our conclusion puts effective as a trigger!

Does that help clear this up a bit? If not, let's get into a breakdown.


DIAGRAMMING
Your diagramming is slightly incorrect, but that's not the reason you got pulled off course on this question. So let's clean up the diagramming just a tad first, then move into the meat of the question.

PREMISES
H --> AA and HA
E --> CM --> AA and HA
CONCLUSION
E --> H

Notice that AA (attracting attention) is not a trigger for HA (holding attention). The argument simply says that H (humor) does both. Also notice that we cannot conclude that just because something attracts and hold attention that a message will necessarily be conveyed (there may not be a message). So we can't tack on CM to the end of the H premise.

However, if something does manage to convey a message, it really must have attracted and held attention long enough to do so. The argument doesn't give us this explicitly, but it's a connection we can't realistically escape. So we can add (AA and HA) after CM.

In order to make this conclusion of E --> H work, we'd really need to take (H --> AA and HA) and turn it around! If we knew that (AA and HA --> H), then this argument would be solid.

And that's the flaw - the argument confuses the one we have (H --> AA and HA) for the one it wants (AA and HA --> H), which is exactly what (A) points out.

Now, this is 100% a problem of confusing "necessary" and "sufficient", which is the language that makes (C) so attractive. But it treats a necessary condition for humor as if it were a sufficient condition. It doesn't do so for effectiveness!

It's easy to start to think of all conditional flaws as "messing up the sufficient and necessary"; and in a sense, that's true! But there are many different ways of confusing those two items, and sometimes answer choices will demand that you know precisely where the breakdown occurred.


The Other Wrong Answers
(B) These two items are treated as one concept. The argument never splits them up, so never confuses them.
(D) The term "effective" is never used in a different sense.
(E) The argument never discusses the purpose of ads.


Please let me know if this completely answers your question on this!

[andrewgong01]

agersh144, I'm glad you posted this question! This brings up an often confused issue with conditionals!

Now, this is 100% a problem of confusing "necessary" and "sufficient", which is the language that makes (C) so attractive. But it treats a necessary condition for humor as if it were a sufficient condition. It doesn't do so for effectiveness!

It's easy to start to think of all conditional flaws as "messing up the sufficient and necessary"; and in a sense, that's true! But there are many different ways of confusing those two items, and sometimes answer choices will demand that you know precisely where the breakdown occurred.


The Other Wrong Answers
(B) These two items are treated as one concept. The argument never splits them up, so never confuses them.
(D) The term "effective" is never used in a different sense.
(E) The argument never discusses the purpose of ads.


Please let me know if this completely answers your question on this!

A part that still confuses me here is how does it treat "a necessary condition for humor as if it were a sufficient condition" [Rewording of Answer Choice C] It seems like to me the necessary condition is hold attention long enough and attract attention. But I don't see how these two concepts get transformed into sufficient conditions in the argument later on.

On the other hand for the original wording of "C" I do see how "convey a message" was never used to be sufficient in concluding ads had to have humour. In fact the argument being presented is concluding something completely different where it is saying if it is an effective ad then it is a humorous one and not telling us how do we ensure that a humorous ad is effective

[ohthatpatrick]

This is the argument the author THINKS she's making:

P1: Effective ----> conveys message
P2: conveys message --> humorous
===========================
conc: Effective --> humorous

That is a valid argument.

Which of the two premises there is INCORRECT, based on what was actually said in the argument?

P2 is wrong. We heard
"IF humorous, THEN conveys message" (humorous -> conveys message)

Since the author's thinking switched the order of that conditional, we call it a Nec vs. Suff error.

We were told "Humorous --> conveys message", where the NEC condition for humor is "conveys message".

The author was thinking "conveys message --> humorous", where the SUFF condition for humor is "conveys message".

Hope this helps.

[obobob]

Hi I got this question wrong primarily b/c I didn't take the "hold[ing] their attention long enough for a message to be conveyed" part as the equivalent of saying "convey[ing] the message" in this argument.

Can someone help me understand how they are essentially the same statement?

I put the conditional statements as the following:

P1: Humorous --> hold ppl's attention long enough (so that it opens a possibility) to hold their attention long enough for a message to be conveyed (so this statement does not guarantee that a message will be conveyed)
P2: Humorous --> convey message

C: Effective --> Humorous

Thank you in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

You indicated that the 2nd premise was
P2: Humorous --> convey message

but I think you mean
P2: Effective --> convey message

I think you're getting tangled up here because you're reading these in their positive form, when the contrapositive form might be easier to understand. Also, in my explanation, I'm using some shorthand to make the conditional logic easier to see (truncating "holds attention long enough to convey message" into just "convey message").

The CONC is saying
"If an ad isn't humorous, then it won't be effective"

The rule we got in the PREMISES for effectiveness is
"If an ad doesn't convey its message, then it won't be effective"

If we only had these two pieces, we would know that the author was assuming that
"If an ad isn't humorous, then it won't convey its message"

The other PREMISE says something close:
"If an ad IS humorous, then it will hold attention long enough for message to be conveyed".

As you said, holding someone's attention long enough for a message to be conveyed doesn't seem to guarantee that the message was in fact conveyed.

But, it's certainly the case that if you DON'T hold someone's attention long enough for a message to be conveyed, then the message was definitely NOT conveyed.

Our author isn't arguing that every humorous TV ad is bound to be effective.

She's arguing that every non-humorous TV ad is bound to be ineffective.
She's trying to make this argument:

If an ad is non-humorous, it won't hold attention enough to convey msg
AND
if an ad doesn't convey msg, it won't be effective.
THUS,
If an ad is non-humorous, it won't be effective.

And (A) is pointing out that all she established was that
"if an ad IS humorous, it will hold attention long enough to convey msg"
not that
"if an ad is non-humorous, it WON'T hold attention long enough to convey"

She has established that with humorous ads, it's POSSIBLE that we'll convey the message.

She has failed to establish that with non-humorous ads, it's IMPOSSIBLE that we'll convey the message.

Hope this helps.