The stimulus here presents an argument. The conclusion is "the observed difference in the abilities of infants and young adults to distinguish between acoustically similar speech sounds must be the result of the physiological deterioration of hearing."
The premise in support of this conclusion is the observation that "the physiological capacity to hear begins to deteriorate after infancy."
But this is flawed - although the physiological deterioration can certainly be a contributing factor explaining this observed difference, the stimulus does not establish that it is the ONLY possible explanation, or that it is ALONE sufficient to explain the observed difference.
Answer choice (E) explains this flaw: the argument "takes a factor [here, the deterioration of the physiological capacity to hear after infancy] that might contribute to an explanation of the observed difference [i.e., the difference in infants' vs. young adults' abilities to distinguish between acoustically similar speech sounds] as a *sufficient* explanation for that difference.
Hope this helps!
KatrinaMusaApril 8, 2020
Is this a correlation/causation flaw? I got the right answer but I am having trouble picking up on correlation and causation flaw.
