The Textbook Problem of How Many Socks to Take Out

Multiple Choice

The textbook problem of how many socks to take out of a drawer to get a matched pair when the drawer contains a four to five mixture of white and black socks requires the reader to realize that the four to five mixture is irrelevant information and that only relevant information is that there are two colors of socks.Getting the correct answer of three socks requires the reader to first use which of Sternberg and Davidson's insight abilities?

A) selective combination
B) selective attention
C) selective comparison
D) selective encoding