Effects of Directionality in Deductive Reasoning: II. Premise Integration and Conclusion Evaluation

Abstract

Previous research (Oberauer & Wilhelm, 2000) has shown an inherent directionality between the two terms linked in premises of typical deductive reasoning tasks. With three experiments we investigated the effect of inherent directionality on the time to integrate two premises and for the derivation of a conclusion. We varied figure (i.e., order of terms in the premises) and direction of inference (i.e., order of terms in the conclusion) in deduction tasks from various domains (propositional reasoning, syllogisms, spatial, temporal, and linear order reasoning). Effects of figure on premise reading times varied with the directionality of the relations. Effects of direction of inference reflected the same directionality for a subset of relations. We propose that two factors are jointly responsible for a large part of observed directionality effects in premise integration: the inherent directionality of relational statements and a general advantage for a given-new order of terms in the second premise. Difficulty of deriving a conclusion is affected by the directionality or relations if and only if the relation is semantically asymmetric, so that the directionality must be preserved in the integrated mental model.

Accessing information in working memory: Can the focus of attention grasp two elements at the same time?

“…Thus, a processing benefit is found whenever the relatum of the second statement is already given as part of the first statement, regardless of its role in the first statement. The same principles seem to govern reasoning with temporal relations such as "the train stopped before the conductor fell," and comparative relations such as "Jim is faster than John" (Oberauer, Hörnig, Weidenfeld, & Wilhelm, 2005). The relatum ϭ given principle governing integration of descriptive spatial statements corresponds exactly to the effect of the relatum predictor in the present experiment: An instruction is processed faster if its relatum is one of the entities used in the preceding instruction, regardless of what role that entity had in the preceding instruction.…”

Comprehension and computation in Bayesian problem solving

“…This is consistent with the suggestion that one of the biggest challenges may be getting reasoners focused on the correct reference set of positive testers (Evans et al, 2000 ; Girotto and Gonzalez, 2001 ). While this particular logical difficulty (backward reasoning or quantification of backward relations) has not been directly demonstrated in Bayesian word problems, similar explanations have been used to successfully account for performance in other reasoning tasks (Evans, 1993 ; Barrouillet et al, 2000 ; Oberauer and Wilhelm, 2000 ; Oberauer et al, 2005 ; Oberauer, 2006 ; Waldmann et al, 2006 ; Sloman and Lagnado, 2015 ), suggesting it may also be a key stumbling block in Bayesian reasoning. This explanation might also help to explain why reasoning can be improved with manipulations which encourage the experience of a scenario from multiple perspectives, such as “interactivity” in other Bayesian tasks (Vallée-Tourangeau et al, 2015a ) and the “perspective effect” in the Monty Hall dilemma (for review see Tubau et al, 2015 ), which would help to facilitate the backward inference.…”

Theories of the syllogism: A meta-analysis.

“…Ever since the discovery of the figural effect, theorists have considered alternative accounts, based either on an intrinsic ordering of terms in representations that reflect underlying semantic processes (e.g., Johnson-Laird & Steedman, 1978) or on the "first in, first out" properties of working memory (e.g., Johnson-Laird & Bara, 1984b). In our view, the definitive account of the phenomenon is a semantic one due to Oberauer and his colleagues (Oberauer, Hörnig, Weidenfeld, & Wilhelm, 2005;Oberauer & Wilhelm, 2000). The contents of syllogisms affect reasoning.…”