Psychologist: Thinking can occur without language.

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Logical Reasoning question.

TopicsRole

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Stimulus

Psychologist: Thinking can occur without language. Researchers have demonstrated that three-month-old infants, who obviously have no knowledge of language, can detect anomalies in pictures—in a picture displaying a human face with three eyes, for example. The infants probably compare this picture with an internal representation of a typical human face must exist in the infants’ minds.

What this question is testing

Role

Your task

Break the argument into its conclusion and evidence, then do exactly what the question stem asks with that structure.

Common trap

Answers that sound relevant to the topic but don't connect to the argument's actual reasoning.

Winning move

Predict what a right answer must do, then test each choice against the conclusion-evidence gap.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

The statement that a thought of a typical human face must exist in the infants’ minds plays which one of the following roles

Answer choices

Correct81% picked this
It is a conclusion drawn and used in turn as a premise to support a
Why this is right
This answer describes an Intermediate Conclusion. It is a conclusion, because it's supported by at least one premise, but it's also a premise used to support the Main Conclusion. The more general conclusion is that "thinking can occur without language". Why should we believe that thinking can occur without language? Because infants, who don't have language, still have the means to think about what a typical human face looks like. Why should we believe that? Because there was a study that showed that 3-month old infants knew when a picture of a face wasn't a normal human face.
Skill tested: Role · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
81%
Not Attributed4% picked this
It is attributed to certain researchers as the main conclusion of
The author of this paragraph is drawing this conclusion. It hasn't been attributed to the researchers. That would sound like, "Thus, they concluded that ..."
4%
Wrong Role11% picked this
It is the main point of the
The first sentence is the main conclusion. This is a supporting conclusion.
11%
Not Refuting1% picked this
It is used to refute the claim that infants have no
No one ever claimed that "infants have no knowledge of language", so the author cannot be refuting that position. There's no opponent in this argument.
1%
Not a Hypothesis2% picked this
It states the hypothesis to be explained by the
The 3rd sentence is a speculative hypothesis to explain the curious data from the 2nd sentence. How are infants able to detect anomalies in pictures? Because, they probably can compare this picture to a mental image they have a normal human face. The 4th sentence, which we're being asked about, is an inference you could draw from that hypothesis: "Say ... if they're comparing a picture to an internal mental image, then I guess you could say they have a thought in their minds about what a typical human face looks like."
2%

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