Inferences about spatial, temporal, and other relations are ubiquitous. This article presents a novel model-based theory of such reasoning. The theory depends on 5 principles. The structure of mental models is iconic as far as possible. The logical consequences of relations emerge from models constructed from the meanings of the relations and from knowledge. Individuals tend to construct only a single, typical model. They spontaneously develop their own strategies for relational reasoning. Regardless of strategy, the difficulty of an inference depends (...) on the process of integration of the information from separate premises, the number of entities that have to be integrated to form a model, and the depth of the relation. The article describes computer implementations of the theory and presents experimental results corroborating its main principle. (shrink)

The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005) is designed to measure the tendency to override a prepotent response alternative that is incorrect and to engage in further reflection that leads to the correct response. It is a prime measure of the miserly information processing posited by most dual process theories. The original three-item test may be becoming known to potential participants, however. We examined a four-item version that could serve as a substitute for the original. Our data show that it (...) displays a.58 correlation with the original version and that it has very similar relationships with cognitive ability, various thinking dispositions, and with several other rational thinking tasks. Combining the two versions into a seven-item test resulted in a measure of miserly processing with substantial reliability (.72). The seven-item version was a strong independent predictor of performance on rational thinking tasks after the variance accounted for by cognitive ability and thinking dispositions had been partialled out. (shrink)

Two experiments examined the contribution of working memory (WM) to the retrieval and inhibition of background knowledge about counterexamples (alternatives and disablers, Cummins, ) during conditional reasoning. Experiment 1 presented a conditional reasoning task with everyday, causal conditionals to a group of people with high and low WM spans. High spans rejected the logically invalid AC and DA inferences to a greater extent than low spans, whereas low spans accepted the logically valid MP and MT inferences less frequently than high (...) spans. In Experiment 2, an executive-attention-demanding secondary task was imposed during the reasoning task. Findings corroborate that WM resources are used for retrieval of stored counterexamples and that people with high WM spans will use WM resources to inhibit the counterexample activation when the type of counterexample conflicts with the logical validity of the reasoning problem. (shrink)

This study examined the idea that reasoning involves construction of mental representations of premises and that there is a developmental progression in the ability of Ss to reason with models containing concrete and abstract elements. Exp 1 found that for 13- and 16-yr-old Ss, reasoning with abstract content was more difficult than with concrete content. Younger Ss appeared to rely more on concrete representations that used real-world knowledge than on more general abstract representations. Exp 2 explored order effects in the (...) presentation of concrete and abstract problems.followed by concrete problems led to reduced concrete-problem performance for high school students but did not affect performance for university students. These results support the hypotheses and suggest that development of formal reasoning abilities goes through 2 levels. (shrink)

Conditional reasoning is one of the key components of logical reasoning. Studies examining the way that children and adults make conditional inferences have shown that while there are some clear developmental patterns, there is also a great deal of variation in performance due to factors such as problem content. Such variation is difficult to model without an explicit process model. In the following we propose a variant of mental model theory that can explain much of the empirical data. This model (...) suggests that the development of conditional reasoning can be explained, at least partly, by such factors as the capacity of working memory, the range of knowledge available to a reasoner and his/her ability to access this knowledge on-line. (shrink)