Activation of end-terms in syllogistic reasoning
Thinking and Reasoning 6 (1):67 – 89 (2000)
| Abstract | We report five experiments showing that the activation of the end-terms of a syllogism is determined by their position in the composite model of the premises. We show that it is not determined by the position of the terms in the rule being applied (Ford, 1994), by the syntactic role of the terms in the premises (Polk & Newell, 1995; Wetherick & Gilhooly, 1990), by the type of conclusion (Chater & Oaksford, 1999), or by the terms from the source premise (Stenning & Yule, 1997). In our first experiment we found that after reading a categorical premise, the most active term is the last term in the premise. In Experiments 2, 3, and 4 we demonstrated that this pattern of activity is due to the position of the concepts in the model of the premises, regardless of the delay after reading the premises (150 or 2000 msec) or the quantity of the quantifiers (universal or existential). The fifth experiment showed that the pattern switches around after participants evaluate a conclusion. We propose that the last element in the model maintains a higher level of activity during the comprehension process because it is generally used to attach the incoming information. After this process, the first term becomes more active because it is the concept to which the whole representation is referred. These results are predicted by the mental model theory (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991), but not by the verbal reasoning theory (Polk & Newell, 1995), the graphical methods theory (Yule & Stenning, 1992), the attachment-heuristic theory (Chater & Oaksford, 1999), or the mental rules theory (Ford, 1994). | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | No categories specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,664 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesRosemary J. Stevenson & David E. Over (2001). Reasoning From Uncertain Premises: Effects of Expertise and Conversational Context. Thinking and Reasoning 7 (4):367 – 390.
Alison Bacon, Simon Handley & Stephen Newstead (2003). Individual Differences in Strategies for Syllogistic Reasoning. Thinking and Reasoning 9 (2):133 – 168.
Hugo Mercier & Guy Politzer (2011). Solving Categorical Syllogisms with Singular Premises. Thinking and Reasoning 14 (4):434-454.
Guy Politzer & Hugo Mercier (2008). Solving Categorical Syllogisms with Singular Premises. Thinking and Reasoning 14 (4):434 – 454.
Henry Markovits (2000). A Mental Model Analysis of Young Children's Conditional Reasoning with Meaningful Premises. Thinking and Reasoning 6 (4):335 – 347.
Carlos Santamaria Juan A. Garcia-Madruga Philip & N. Johnson-Laird (1998). Reasoning From Double Conditionals: The Effects of Logical Structure and Believability. Thinking and Reasoning 4 (2):97 – 122.
Simon J. Handley & Jonathan St B. T. Evans (2000). Supposition and Representation in Human Reasoning. Thinking and Reasoning 6 (4):273 – 311.
Carlos Santamar (2001). Theories of Reasoning and the Representational Level: A Reply to Oaksford. Thinking and Reasoning 7 (2):209 – 213.
Mike Oaksford (2001). Language Processing, Activation and Reasoning: A Reply to Espino, Santamar a, and Garc a-Madruga (2000). Thinking and Reasoning 7 (2):205 – 208.
Analytics
Monthly downloads
Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
|
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads2 ( #232,316 of 549,013 )Recent downloads (6 months)0How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
