Abstract

The continued predominance of SL‐logic and deductive paradigms in the research on conditional‐based reasoning by experimental psychologists is examined and criticized. After recounting the history and influence of the model, I note the emergence of trends in epistemology and other areas of theory that might provide a springboard for the critique of the model, and I argue that a new approach to examining reasoning with conditionals ought to be developed. I conclude that a superior approach would model such reasoning with sociolinguistic, inductive, and neurophysiological parameters, and that it would not involve any comparison of subjects’ reasoning with the standard deductive rules of logic.