the influence of rule frames on inferences between disjunctive sentences

Abstract

A current issue in natural language semantics and the psychology of reasoning is how people make inferences between two disjunctive sentences (e.g., inferences between There is A or B or C and There is A or B; inferences between There is at least one of A, B, and C and There is at least one of A, B, C, and D) with two different sets of elements. The interdisciplinary question whether different linguistic forms (OR versus quantifier rule frames) of equivalent disjunctive sentences make a difference to human inferences between two disjunctive sentences with two different sets of elements can distinguish between syntactic and semantic accounts for reasoning. Classical logic, the Bayesian approach, the original and revised mental models theory all answer “no” to the question. Alternatively, an epistemic rule relation account based on comparing explicit rules (that is, syntactic gestalts) of premise and conclusion sentences answers “yes” to the question. Three experiments found the effect of rule frames that quantifier frames elicited more correct inferences than OR frames, and these two rule frames elicited opposite response patterns. This finding favors only the epistemic rule relation account, and suggests the general implication that inferences between two compound sentences may primarily be based on the epistemic rule relation between both, which is modulated by rule frame.Keywords: inferences between disjunctive sentences; rule frame; or; at least one; the epistemic rule relation account; framing effects