September 2016 LSAT Section 4 Question 14

Psychology researchers observed that parents feel emotion while singing to their infants. The researchers hypothesize...

candace on March 19, 2019

Choice A

The passage says that parents feel more emotion when singing to their kids, but the experiment simply tests if adults have more emotion when singing to their kids vs. to an empty room. Someone could easily say that there was more emotion not because they were singing to their kids but because they were singing to a person. Choice A combats that weakness in the argument. I do not understand why it is wrong.

Replies

Create a free account to read and take part in forum discussions.

Already have an account? log in

JeremyG on May 17, 2019

Same question here. Please explain.

JeremyG on May 17, 2019

My best guess at an explanation: The thrust of the argument is that the "psychologists were able to correctly identify, by listening alone, which recordings were of parents singing to their children." As such, we can conclude that the premise that would most strengthen the argument would tell us something about the aural qualities of the singing in question. A does not do this and as such does not strengthen the argument in question. Nor do B, C, or E. D - "When a person feels emotion, the emotion provokes involuntary physiological responses that affect the vocal cords and lungs" - by contrast does.

Noelle-Simon on June 11, 2020

Make sure that you're correctly identifying the conclusion of this argument, which is that the research hypothesis was correct, therefore that emotion affects the way in which parents singing sounds. The answer needs to strengthen the conclusion - which D does. The conclusion doesn't mention anything about more/less emotion, just that emotion itself makes music more distinguishable