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The article doesn't actually specify that 78% guessed correctly or incorrectly, just that 78% guessed without ever entering an invalid sequence.

If you're taking that from the article, I think you misread it.

> Remarkably, 78 percent of people who have played this game so far have guessed the answer without first hearing a single no.

Some of those 78% probably got it right, and some of the remainder would have got it wrong.

Some of those 78% probably got it right...

In what sense? How did they know that e.g. (1, 1, 1) didn't work, unless they tried it?

In the sense that they guessed the rule correctly. The correct answer was the dominant hypothesis in my mind before I tried any sequences, and others here report the same.

Or at least, the portion of the HN community who reported their results, reported that they think different. :-)

Yep, I'd guess this is a massive bias. The people who get it right are much more apt to report and show how smart they are

It just means that this test was described at least several times in different "computer" media over last few years and almost everyone has read about it. Same thing with all "logic" puzzles.