Individuals often revise their beliefs when confronted with contradicting evidence. Belief revision in the spatial domain can be regarded as variation of initially constructed spatial mental models. Construction and revision usually follow distinct cognitive principles. The present study examines whether principles of revisions which follow constructions under high task demands differ from principles applied after less demanding constructions. We manipulated the task demands for model constructions by means of the continuity with which a spatial model was constructed. We administered tasks (...) with continuous, semi-continuous, and discontinuous conditions as between-subject factor (experiment 1) and as within-subject factor (experiment 2). Construction and revision followed distinct cognitive principles in the changeless conditions of experiment 1. With increased task demands due to switches between different continuity conditions (experiment 2), reasoners adapted the principles they used for model revisions to the principles which they had used during antecedent constructions. (shrink)

For most of its history, the psychology of reasoning was dominated by binary extensional logic. The so-called “new paradigm” instead puts subjective degrees of belief center stage, often represented as probabilities. We argue that the “new paradigm” is too vaguely defined and therefore does not allow a clear decision about what falls within its scope and what does not. We also show that there was not one settled theoretical “old” paradigm, before the new developments emerged, and that the alleged new (...) paradigm is less revolutionary as the term suggests. A more veridical view is that current progress is developing in continuities where rival research programs can thrive or fail in the face of new experimental findings. The article closes with some topics where more connections between competing research programs are likely to promote progress in our understanding of human reasoning. (shrink)

The appeal to expert opinion is an argument form that uses the verdict of an expert to support a position or hypothesis. A previous scheme-based treatment of the argument form is formalized within a Bayesian network that is able to capture the critical aspects of the argument form, including the central considerations of the expert's expertise and trustworthiness. We propose this as an appropriate normative framework for the argument form, enabling the development and testing of quantitative predictions as to how (...) people evaluate this argument, suggesting that such an approach might be beneficial to argumentation research generally. We subsequently present two experiments as an example of the potential for future research in this vein, demonstrating that participants' quantitative ratings of the convincingness of a proposition that has been supported with an appeal to expert opinion were broadly consistent with the predictions of the Bayesian model. (shrink)

Prior research shows mixed findings regarding individuals’ belief-revision strategies. The current research is aimed to test (a) whether individuals’ reasoning across abstract vs real-world content shows similarity, and (b) whether individuals’ syllogistic reasoning predicts their belief-revision strategies. Experiment 1, testing 76 participants (50 females), provides evidence for the similarity in reasoning across abstract and real-world content (p.05). Individuals seem to revise the conditional statement in the AC and DA inferences, especially when the content poses a threat. In contrast, individuals prefer (...) to revise the categorical premise in the MT inferences, especially when the content poses a threat. These findings suggest that in the face of inconsistency individuals’ decision about which of their prior beliefs they should revise is influenced by the structure and content of the belief-contravening problem rather than their reasoning ability. (shrink)

People accept conclusions of valid conditional inferences (e.g., if p then q, p therefore q) less, the more disablers (circumstances that prevent q to happen although p is true) exist. We investigated whether rules that through their phrasing exclude disablers evoke higher acceptance ratings than rules that do not exclude disablers. In three experiments we re-phrased content-rich conditionals from the literature as either universal or existential rules and embedded these rules in Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens inferences. In Experiments 2 (...) and 3, we also used abstract rules. The acceptance of conclusions increased when the rule was phrased with “all” instead of “some” and the number of disablers had a higher impact on existential rules than on universal rules. Further, the effect of quantifier was more pronounced for abstract rules and when tested within subjects. We discuss the relevance of phrasing, quantifiers and knowledge on reasoning. (shrink)