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  1. Illusions in Reasoning.Sangeet S. Khemlani & P. N. Johnson-Laird - 2017 - Minds and Machines 27 (1):11-35.
    Some philosophers argue that the principles of human reasoning are impeccable, and that mistakes are no more than momentary lapses in “information processing”. This article makes a case to the contrary. It shows that human reasoners commit systematic fallacies. The theory of mental models predicts these errors. It postulates that individuals construct mental models of the possibilities to which the premises of an inference refer. But, their models usually represent what is true in a possibility, not what is false. This (...)
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  • The processes of inference.Sangeet Khemlani & P. N. Johnson-Laird - 2013 - Argument and Computation 4 (1):4 - 20.
    (2013). The processes of inference. Argument & Computation: Vol. 4, Formal Models of Reasoning in Cognitive Psychology, pp. 4-20. doi: 10.1080/19462166.2012.674060.
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  • Schoolchildren’s transitive reasoning with the spatial relation ‘is left/right of’.Kevin Demiddele, Tom Heyman & Walter Schaeken - forthcoming - Thinking and Reasoning:1-31.
    We examine schoolchildren’s reasoning with spatial relations, such as ‘is to the left of’. Our aims are to obtain a more precise account of the effect of working memory on reasoning, a more detaile...
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  • The stability of syllogistic reasoning performance over time.Hannah Dames, Karl Christoph Klauer & Marco Ragni - 2022 - Thinking and Reasoning 28 (4):529-568.
    How individuals reason deductively has concerned researchers for many years. Yet, it is still unclear whether, and if so how, participants’ reasoning performance changes over time. In two test sessions one week apart, we examined how the syllogistic reasoning performance of 100 participants changed within and between sessions. Participants’ reasoning performance increased during the first session. A week later, they started off at the same level of reasoning performance but did not further improve. The reported performance gains were only found (...)
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  • Does everyone love everyone? The psychology of iterative reasoning.Paolo Cherubini & P. N. Johnson-Laird - 2004 - Thinking and Reasoning 10 (1):31 – 53.
    When a quantified premise such as: Everyone loves anyone who loves someone, occurs with a premise such as: Anne loves Beth, it follows immediately that everyone loves Anne. It also follows that Carol loves Diane, where these two individuals are in the domain of discourse. According to the theory of mental models, this inference requires the quantified premise to be used again to update a model of specific individuals. The paper reports four experiments examining such iterative inferences. Experiment 1 confirmed (...)
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  • On imagining what is true (and what is false).Patricia Barres & P. N. Johnson-Laird - 2003 - Thinking and Reasoning 9 (1):1 – 42.
    How do people imagine the possibilities in which an assertion would be true and the possibilities in which it would be false? We argue that the mental representation of the meanings of connectives, such as "and", "or", and "if", specify how to construct the true possibilities for simple assertions containing just a single connective. It follows that the false possibilities are constructed by inference from the true possibilities. We report converging evidence supporting this account from four experiments in which the (...)
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  • Model theory of deduction: a unified computational approach.Bruno G. Bara, Monica Bucciarelli & Vincenzo Lombardo - 2001 - Cognitive Science 25 (6):839-901.
    One of the most debated questions in psychology and cognitive science is the nature and the functioning of the mental processes involved in deductive reasoning. However, all existing theories refer to a specific deductive domain, like syllogistic, propositional or relational reasoning.Our goal is to unify the main types of deductive reasoning into a single set of basic procedures. In particular, we bring together the microtheories developed from a mental models perspective in a single theory, for which we provide a formal (...)
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  • Confidence judgments in syllogistic reasoning: the role of consistency and response cardinality.Igor Bajšanski, Valnea Žauhar & Pavle Valerjev - 2018 - Thinking and Reasoning 25 (1):14-47.
    ABSTRACTIn two experiments, we examined the resolution of confidence judgments in syllogistic reasoning and their heuristic bases. Based on the assumptions of Koriat's Self-Consistency Model of confidence, we expected the confidence judgments to be related to conclusion consensuality, reflecting the role of consistency as a heuristic cue to confidence. In Experiment 1, the participants evaluated 24 syllogisms with conclusions that varied with respect to validity and consensuality. In Experiment 2, the participants produced conclusions to 64 pairs of premises. The correlation (...)
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  • Individual differences in strategies for syllogistic reasoning.Alison Bacon, Simon Handley & Stephen Newstead - 2003 - Thinking and Reasoning 9 (2):133 – 168.
    Current theories of reasoning such as mental models or mental logic assume a universal cognitive mechanism that underlies human reasoning performance. However, there is evidence that this is not the case, for example, the work of Ford (1995), who found that some people adopted predominantly spatial and some verbal strategies in a syllogistic reasoning task. Using written and think-aloud protocols, the present study confirmed the existence of these individual differences. However, in sharp contrast to Ford, the present study found few (...)
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  • Mental models and logical reasoning problems in the GRE.Yingrui Yang & P. N. Johnosn-Laird - 2001 - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 7 (4):308.
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  • Illusions in quantified reasoning: How to make the impossible seem possible, and vice versa.Yingrui Yang & Philip Johnson-Laird - 2000 - Memory and Cognition 28 (3):452-465.
    The mental model theory postulates that reasoners build models of the situations described in premises, and that these models normally represent only what is true. The theory has an unexpected consequence. It predicts the existence ofillusions in inferences. Certain inferences should have compelling but erroneous conclusions. Two experiments corroborated the occurrence of such illusions in inferences about what is possible from disjunctions of quantified assertions, such as, “at least some of the plastic beads are not red.” Experiment 1 showed that (...)
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  • Causal reasoning with forces.Phillip Wolff & Aron K. Barbey - 2015 - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9.
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  • Strategies in sentential reasoning.Jean-Baptiste Van der Henst, Yingrui Yang & P. N. Johnson-Laird - 2002 - Cognitive Science 26 (4):425-468.
    Four experiments examined the strategies that individuals develop in sentential reasoning. They led to the discovery of five different strategies. According to the theory proposed in the paper, each of the strategies depends on component tactics, which all normal adults possess, and which are based on mental models. Reasoners vary their use of tactics in ways that have no deterministic account. This variation leads different individuals to assemble different strategies, which include the construction of incremental diagrams corresponding to mental models, (...)
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  • Strategies in sentential reasoning.Jean-Baptiste Van Der Henst, Yingrui Yang & Johnson-Laird N. Philip - 2002 - Cognitive Science 26 (4):425-468.
    Four experiments examined the strategies that individuals develop in sentential reasoning. They led to the discovery of five different strategies. According to the theory proposed in the paper, each of the strategies depends on component tactics, which all normal adults possess, and which are based on mental models. Reasoners vary their use of tactics in ways that are not deterministic. This variation leads different individuals to assemble different strategies, which include the construction of incremental diagram corresponding to mental models, and (...)
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  • Logic, Probability, and Pragmatics in Syllogistic Reasoning.Michael Henry Tessler, Joshua B. Tenenbaum & Noah D. Goodman - 2022 - Topics in Cognitive Science 14 (3):574-601.
    Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 3, Page 574-601, July 2022.
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  • Matching bias in syllogistic reasoning: Evidence for a dual-process account from response times and confidence ratings.Edward J. N. Stupple, Linden J. Ball & Daniel Ellis - 2013 - Thinking and Reasoning 19 (1):54 - 77.
    (2013). Matching bias in syllogistic reasoning: Evidence for a dual-process account from response times and confidence ratings. Thinking & Reasoning: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 54-77. doi: 10.1080/13546783.2012.735622.
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  • Advancing the rationality debate.Keith E. Stanovich & Richard F. West - 2000 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (5):701-717.
    In this response, we clarify several misunderstandings of the understanding/acceptance principle and defend our specific operationalization of that principle. We reiterate the importance of addressing the problem of rational task construal and we elaborate the notion of computational limitations contained in our target article. Our concept of thinking dispositions as variable intentional-level styles of epistemic and behavioral regulation is explained, as is its relation to the rationality debate. Many of the suggestions of the commentators for elaborating two-process models are easily (...)
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  • Comments on Quantum Probability Theory.Steven Sloman - 2014 - Topics in Cognitive Science 6 (1):47-52.
    Quantum probability theory (QP) is the best formal representation available of the most common form of judgment involving attribute comparison (inside judgment). People are capable, however, of judgments that involve proportions over sets of instances (outside judgment). Here, the theory does not do so well. I discuss the theory both in terms of descriptive adequacy and normative appropriateness.
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  • Strategies in temporal reasoning.Walter Schaeken & Philip N. Johnson-Laird - 2000 - Thinking and Reasoning 6 (3):193 – 219.
    This paper reports three studies of temporal reasoning. A problem of the following sort, where the letters denote common everyday events: A happens before B. C happens before B. D happens while B. E happens while C. What is the relation between D and EEfficacylls for at least two alternative models to be constructed in order to give the right answer for the right reason. However, the first premise is irrelevant to this answer, and so if reasoners were to ignore (...)
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  • Real Objects Can Impede Conditional Reasoning but Augmented Objects Do Not.Yuri Sato, Yutaro Sugimoto & Kazuhiro Ueda - 2018 - Cognitive Science 42 (2):691-707.
    In this study, Knauff and Johnson-Laird's visual impedance hypothesis is applied to the domain of external representations and diagrammatic reasoning. We show that the use of real objects and augmented real objects can control human interpretation and reasoning about conditionals. As participants made inferences, they also moved objects corresponding to premises. Participants who moved real objects made more invalid inferences than those who moved AR objects and those who did not manipulate objects. Our results showed that real objects impeded conditional (...)
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  • Strategy Analysis of Non-consequence Inference with Euler Diagrams.Yuri Sato, Yuichiro Wajima & Kazuhiro Ueda - 2018 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 27 (1):61-77.
    How can Euler diagrams support non-consequence inferences? Although an inference to non-consequence, in which people are asked to judge whether no valid conclusion can be drawn from the given premises, is one of the two sides of logical inference, it has received remarkably little attention in research on human diagrammatic reasoning; how diagrams are really manipulated for such inferences remains unclear. We hypothesized that people naturally make these inferences by enumerating possible diagrams, based on the logical notion of self-consistency, in (...)
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  • How Diagrams Can Support Syllogistic Reasoning: An Experimental Study.Yuri Sato & Koji Mineshima - 2015 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 24 (4):409-455.
    This paper explores the question of what makes diagrammatic representations effective for human logical reasoning, focusing on how Euler diagrams support syllogistic reasoning. It is widely held that diagrammatic representations aid intuitive understanding of logical reasoning. In the psychological literature, however, it is still controversial whether and how Euler diagrams can aid untrained people to successfully conduct logical reasoning such as set-theoretic and syllogistic reasoning. To challenge the negative view, we build on the findings of modern diagrammatic logic and introduce (...)
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  • An antidote to illusory inferences.Carlos Santamaria & P. N. Johnson-Laird - 2000 - Thinking and Reasoning 6 (4):313 – 333.
    The mental model theory predicts that reasoners normally represent what is true, but not what is false. One consequence is that reasoners should make "illusory" inferences, which are compelling but invalid. Three experiments confirmed the existence of such illusions based on disjunctions of disjunctions. They also established a successful antidote to them: Reasoners are much less likely to succumb to illusions if the inferences concern disjunctions of physical objects (alternative newspaper advertisements) rather disjunctions of the truth values of assertions. The (...)
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  • Strategies in relational inference.Maxwell J. Roberts - 2000 - Thinking and Reasoning 6 (1):1 – 26.
    Three experiments are reported in which the relationships between task format, item type, and strategy usage were investigated for a two-dimensional relational inference task. Contrary to past findings with linear syllogisms, it was found that parallel presentation (presenting problem statements simultaneously) did not result in any increased use of deduction rule processes compared with serial presentation (presenting problem statements individually). Instead, the results suggested that mental models were used by the majority of subjects, and that multiple models were more likely (...)
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  • Quantifier interpretation and syllogistic reasoning.Maxwell J. Roberts, Stephen E. Newstead & Richard A. Griggs - 2001 - Thinking and Reasoning 7 (2):173 – 204.
    Many researchers have suggested that premise interpretation errors can account, at least in part, for errors on categorical syllogisms. However, although it is possible to show that people make such errors in simple inference tasks, the evidence for them is far less clear when actual syllogisms are administered. Part of the problem is due to the lack of clear predictions for the solutions that would be expected when using modified quantifiers, assuming that correct inferences are made from them. This paper (...)
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  • Preadolescents Solve Natural Syllogisms Proficiently.Guy Politzer, Christelle Bosc-Miné & Emmanuel Sander - 2017 - Cognitive Science 41 (S5):1031-1061.
    Abstract“Natural syllogisms” are arguments formally identifiable with categorical syllogisms that have an implicit universal affirmative premise retrieved from semantic memory rather than explicitly stated. Previous studies with adult participants (Politzer, 2011) have shown that the rate of success is remarkably high. Because their resolution requires only the use of a simple strategy (known as ecthesis in classic logic) and an operational use of the concept of inclusion (the recognition that an element that belongs to a subset must belong to the (...)
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  • Basic Emotions in Social Relationships, Reasoning, and Psychological Illnesses.Keith Oatley & Philip N. Johnson-Laird - 2011 - Emotion Review 3 (4):424-433.
    The communicative theory of emotions postulates that emotions are communications both within the brain and between individuals. Basic emotions owe their evolutionary origins to social mammals, and they enable human beings to use repertoires of mental resources appropriate to recurring and distinctive kinds of events. These emotions also enable them to cooperate with other individuals, to compete with them, and to disengage from them. The human system of emotions has also grafted onto basic emotions propositional contents about the cause of (...)
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  • Solving categorical syllogisms with singular premises.Hugo Mercier & Guy Politzer - 2008 - Thinking and Reasoning 14 (4):434-454.
    We elaborate on the approach to syllogistic reasoning based on “case identification” (Stenning & Oberlander, 1995; Stenning & Yule, 1997). It is shown that this can be viewed as the formalisation of a method of proof that dates back to Aristotle, namely proof by exposition ( ecthesis ), and that there are traces of this method in the strategies described by a number of psychologists, from St rring (1908) to the present day. We hypothesised that by rendering individual cases explicit (...)
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  • Illusory inferences with quantifiers.Salvador Mascarenhas & Philipp Koralus - 2017 - Thinking and Reasoning 23 (1):33-48.
    The psychological study of reasoning with quantifiers has predominantly focused on inference patterns studied by Aristotle about two millennia ago. Modern logic has shown a wealth of inference patterns involving quantifiers that are far beyond the expressive power of Aristotelian syllogisms, and whose psychology should be explored. We bring to light a novel class of fallacious inference patterns, some of which are so attractive that they are tantamount to cognitive illusions. In tandem with recent insights from linguistics that quantifiers like (...)
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  • WEIRD languages have misled us, too.Asifa Majid & Stephen C. Levinson - 2010 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2-3):103-103.
    The linguistic and cognitive sciences have severely underestimated the degree of linguistic diversity in the world. Part of the reason for this is that we have projected assumptions based on English and familiar languages onto the rest. We focus on some distortions this has introduced, especially in the study of semantics.
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  • Determinants of cognitive variability.Sangeet S. Khemlani, N. Y. Louis Lee & Monica Bucciarelli - 2010 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2-3):37.
    Henrich et al. address how culture leads to cognitive variability and recommend that researchers be critical about the samples they investigate. However, there are other sources of variability, such as individual strategies in reasoning and the content and context on which processes operate. Because strategy and content drive variability, those factors are of primary interest, while culture is merely incidental.
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  • Exploring the conceptual universe.Charles Kemp - 2012 - Psychological Review 119 (4):685-722.
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  • The role of cognitive and socio-cognitive conflict in learning to reason.Katiuscia Sacco & Monica Bucciarelli - 2007 - Mind and Society 7 (1):1-19.
    The mental model theory claims that the ability to falsify is at the core of human rationality. We assume that cognitive conflicts (CCs) and socio-cognitive conflicts (SCCs) induce falsification, and thus improve syllogistic reasoning performance. Our first study assesses adults’ ability to reason in two different conditions in a single experimental session. In both conditions the participants are presented with conclusions alternative to their own. In the CC condition they are told that these conclusions are casual, in the SCC condition (...)
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  • Peirce, logic diagrams, and the elementary operations of reasoning.P. N. Johnson-Laird - 2002 - Thinking and Reasoning 8 (1):69 – 95.
    This paper describes Peirce's systems of logic diagrams, focusing on the so-called ''existential'' graphs, which are equivalent to the first-order predicate calculus. It analyses their implications for the nature of mental representations, particularly mental models with which they have many characteristics in common. The graphs are intended to be iconic, i.e., to have a structure analogous to the structure of what they represent. They have emergent logical consequences and a single graph can capture all the different ways in which a (...)
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  • Strategies in sentential reasoning.Jean‐Baptiste Henst, Yingrui Yang & P. N. Johnson‐Laird - 2002 - Cognitive Science 26 (4):425-468.
    Four experiments examined the strategies that individuals develop in sentential reasoning. They led to the discovery of five different strategies. According to the theory proposed in the paper, each of the strategies depends on component tactics, which all normal adults possess, and which are based on mental models. Reasoners vary their use of tactics in ways that have no deterministic account. This variation leads different individuals to assemble different strategies, which include the construction of incremental diagrams corresponding to mental models, (...)
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  • Counterexample Search in Diagram‐Based Geometric Reasoning.Yacin Hamami, John Mumma & Marie Amalric - 2021 - Cognitive Science 45 (4):e12959.
    Topological relations such as inside, outside, or intersection are ubiquitous to our spatial thinking. Here, we examined how people reason deductively with topological relations between points, lines, and circles in geometric diagrams. We hypothesized in particular that a counterexample search generally underlies this type of reasoning. We first verified that educated adults without specific math training were able to produce correct diagrammatic representations contained in the premisses of an inference. Our first experiment then revealed that subjects who correctly judged an (...)
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  • Naive causality: a mental model theory of causal meaning and reasoning.Eugenia Goldvarg & P. N. Johnson-Laird - 2001 - Cognitive Science 25 (4):565-610.
    This paper outlines a theory and computer implementation of causal meanings and reasoning. The meanings depend on possibilities, and there are four weak causal relations: A causes B, A prevents B, A allows B, and A allows not‐B, and two stronger relations of cause and prevention. Thus, A causes B corresponds to three possibilities: A and B, not‐A and B, and not‐A and not‐B, with the temporal constraint that B does not precede A; and the stronger relation conveys only the (...)
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  • Reasoning with quantifiers.Bart Geurts - 2003 - Cognition 86 (3):223--251.
    In the semantics of natural language, quantification may have received more attention than any other subject, and one of the main topics in psychological studies on deductive reasoning is syllogistic inference, which is just a restricted form of reasoning with quantifiers. But thus far the semantical and psychological enterprises have remained disconnected. This paper aims to show how our understanding of syllogistic reasoning may benefit from semantical research on quantification. I present a very simple logic that pivots on the monotonicity (...)
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  • Early and late processes in syllogistic reasoning: Evidence from eye-movements.Orlando Espino, Carlos Santamaría, Enrique Meseguer & Manuel Carreiras - 2005 - Cognition 98 (1):B1-B9.
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  • The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning.Michael Waldmann (ed.) - 2017 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
    Causal reasoning is one of our most central cognitive competencies, enabling us to adapt to our world. Causal knowledge allows us to predict future events, or diagnose the causes of observed facts. We plan actions and solve problems using knowledge about cause-effect relations. Without our ability to discover and empirically test causal theories, we would not have made progress in various empirical sciences. In the past decades, the important role of causal knowledge has been discovered in many areas of cognitive (...)
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  • Artificial Intelligence and Cognition. Proceedings of the First International Workshop AIC 2013.Antonio Lieto & Marco Cruciani (eds.) - 2013 - CEUR Workshop Proceedings.
    Proceedings of the Workshop on AI and Cognition.
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