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One of the cognitive processes, which has generated more research within the framework of the Psychology of thinking, is human reasoning. Throughout the history of the Psychology of reasoning, one of the experimental tasks most frequently used to study how subjects reason, and why they make mistakes, is the Wason's selection task or the four card problem (Wason, 1966(Wason, , 1968. This work presents the current state of the experimental research on this task, using as a common thread the empirical studies which have highlighted the plasticity of reasoning towards semantic and pragmatic factors.

Investigations on heuristics and biases have had a great impact on the study of reasoning and related higher cognitive processes, such as judgment and decision making. Specifically, the research in cognitive psychology of reasoning has revealed that people frequently activate mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to make inferences. These are non-logical strategies and could lead subjects to commit systematic deviations from the tenets of normative principles, that is, cognitive biases. The key objective of this paper is to present some of the most relevant theories on heuristics and biases in reasoning, focusing on the dual process theories of deduction. According to these theories, there are two kinds of thinking. Type 1, automatic, unconscious, implicit, fast and effortless and Type 2, reflective, controlled, conscious, explicit, slow and effortful. Much debate on these theories has emphasized on the relationship between both types of processes and the underlying factors that could triggered one or other. In this regard, different dual-process theories propose distinct answers to these questions. The results in the literature have registered that the likelihood of activation of Type 1 and Type 2 processes has important consequences on reasoning, both in experimental laboratory tasks and in everyday situations. Recent empirical investigations that have studied the critical role that intuitive and deliberative processes play in different professional areas are displayed. It is a key question that future research continues with the study of the underlying procedures that professionals activate for reasoning and decision making.

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