Everyday Abstract Conditional Reasoning

Everyday Abstract Conditional Reasoning
Author: András Veszelka
Publisher: Pellea Humán Kutató és Fejlesztő Bt.
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2014-07-04
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9630894637

The interpretation of the ‘if P then Q’ conditional statement is a central element in most logical systems. It largely shapes how these logical systems function. It is well known that, although attempts have been made, logical systems are principally unable to encapsulate how people reason in everyday life. This is mainly due to the discrepancies between the logical abstractions of the conditional statement and its everyday interpretation. Among other things, this makes it difficult to design artificial intelligence based on the abstract rules of logic. However, the ancient logicians who first defined the traditional interpretation of the conditional erroneously took into account more propositions than were actually being denoted. They characterised the ‘if P (or R) then Q’ relationship in place of the ‘if P then Q’ relationship. In relation to this, they also committed the error of leaving the context undenoted, which led to an unnatural interpretation of logical truth and logical necessity. This mistaken interpretation is still predominant today and can also be found in several mathematical logics, such as in propositional logic, even though mathematical logics were allegedly created independently of the ancient Greco-Roman logic. Fixing these problems reveals that the correct interpretation of the conditional statement is the equivalence/biconditional. This equivalent interpretation is interpreted by logicians as one of the most common everyday fallacies. Yet looking back on how the conditional statement was actually abstracted in the antiquity, it is evident that people were right and logicians were mistaken. Although the almost 50-year-old experimental psychological literature on the conditional did not confirm this common everyday tendency towards the biconditional interpretation, these findings are merely the result of unsystematic research. Running some of the long missing experiments leads the main experimental tasks to reveal overall the basic biconditional inferences. The approach presented in this book also resolves such dilemmas as the Wason’s abstract selection task, the paradox of the conditional statement and the Raven paradox. It is also shown here that the probabilistic interpretation of the conditional statement is not in conflict with this basic equivalent/biconditional interpretation. The approach is described in this book as the simplest possible non-monotonic logic, and pragmatic inferences, context effects, counterfactuals, possible world semantics and psychologism are also discussed. Since the conditional statement is equivalent to the universal affirmative statement in syllogisms, it is plausible to observe that fixing this same error in syllogisms also makes them compatible with people's actual inferences. Even the normally ambiguous Euler circles become an excellent tool to depict how this updated logic functions. Finally, with this new approach, the root of learning processes is inherently embedded into the logical abstraction of the conditional/universal affirmative statement, and hence, into logic in general. Therefore, this simple logic, presented in a non-technical way, has the potential to bring both human reasoning and learning under the umbrella of the same abstract system. This might be beneficial both for formalising psychology and for creating artificial intelligence.

The Nature of Reasoning

The Nature of Reasoning
Author: Jacqueline P. Leighton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2004
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780521009287

We are bombarded with information - press releases, television news, Internet websites, and office memos, just to name a few - on a daily basis. However, the important conclusions that may or need to be inferred from such information are typically not provided. We must draw the conclusions by ourselves. How do we draw these conclusions? This book addresses how we reason to reach sensible conclusions. The purpose of this book is to organize in one volume what is known about reasoning, such as its structural prerequisites, its mechanisms, its susceptibility to pragmatic influences, its pitfalls, and the bases for its development. Given that reasoning underlies so many of our intellectual activities - when we learn, criticize, analyze, judge, infer, evaluate, optimize, apply, discover, imagine, devise, and create - we stand to gain a great deal if we can learn to define, operate, apply, and nurture our reasoning.

The Handbook of Rationality

The Handbook of Rationality
Author: Markus Knauff
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 879
Release: 2021-12-14
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 026236185X

The first reference on rationality that integrates accounts from psychology and philosophy, covering descriptive and normative theories from both disciplines. Both analytic philosophy and cognitive psychology have made dramatic advances in understanding rationality, but there has been little interaction between the disciplines. This volume offers the first integrated overview of the state of the art in the psychology and philosophy of rationality. Written by leading experts from both disciplines, The Handbook of Rationality covers the main normative and descriptive theories of rationality—how people ought to think, how they actually think, and why we often deviate from what we can call rational. It also offers insights from other fields such as artificial intelligence, economics, the social sciences, and cognitive neuroscience. The Handbook proposes a novel classification system for researchers in human rationality, and it creates new connections between rationality research in philosophy, psychology, and other disciplines. Following the basic distinction between theoretical and practical rationality, the book first considers the theoretical side, including normative and descriptive theories of logical, probabilistic, causal, and defeasible reasoning. It then turns to the practical side, discussing topics such as decision making, bounded rationality, game theory, deontic and legal reasoning, and the relation between rationality and morality. Finally, it covers topics that arise in both theoretical and practical rationality, including visual and spatial thinking, scientific rationality, how children learn to reason rationally, and the connection between intelligence and rationality.

The Science of Reason

The Science of Reason
Author: Ken Manktelow
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 631
Release: 2010-10-18
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1136939083

This volume is a state-of-the-art survey of the psychology of reasoning, based around, and in tribute to, one of the field’s most eminent figures: Jonathan St B.T. Evans. In this collection of cutting edge research, Evans’ collaborators and colleagues review a wide range of important and developing areas of inquiry. These include biases in thinking, probabilistic and causal reasoning, people’s use of ‘if’ sentences in arguments, the dual-process theory of thought, and the nature of human rationality. These foundational issues are examined from various angles and finally integrated in a concluding panoramic chapter written by Evans himself. The eighteen chapters, all written by leading international researchers, combine state-of the-art research with investigation into the most fundamental questions surrounding human mental life, such as: What is the architecture of the human mind? Are humans rational, and what is the nature of this rationality? How do we think hypothetically? The Science of Reason offers a unique combination of breadth, depth and integrative vision, making it an indispensable resource for researchers and students of human reason.

Modeling and Using Context

Modeling and Using Context
Author: Patrick Brézillon
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 724
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3319578375

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 10th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context, CONTEXT 2017, held in Paris, France, in June 2017. The 26 full papers and 15 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 88 submissions. The papers feature research in a wide range of disciplines related to issues of context and contextual knowledge and discuss commonalities across and differences between the disciplines' approaches to the study of context. They are organized in the following topical sections: context in representation; context modeling of human activities; context in communication; context awareness; and various specific topics.

A Conceptual History of Psychology

A Conceptual History of Psychology
Author: John D. Greenwood
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 573
Release: 2015-08-25
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1316368467

In the new edition of this original and penetrating book, John D. Greenwood provides an in-depth analysis of the subtle conceptual continuities and discontinuities that inform the history of psychology from the speculations of the Ancient Greeks to contemporary cognitive psychology. He also demonstrates the fashion in which different conceptions of human and animal psychology and behavior have become associated and disassociated over the centuries. Moving easily among psychology, history of science, physiology, and philosophy, Greenwood provides a critically challenging account of the development of psychology as a science. He relates the remarkable stories of the intellectual pioneers of modern psychology, while exploring the social and political milieu in which they operated, and dispels many of the myths of the history of psychology, based upon the best historical scholarship of recent decades. This is an impressive overview that will appeal to scholars and graduate students of the history of psychology.

Reasoning: Representation and Process

Reasoning: Representation and Process
Author: Rachel Joffe Falmagne
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2015-06-18
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1317404084

Originally published in 1975, this volume contains original reports of new models and data in the areas of propositional reasoning, syllogistic reasoning, and transitive inference in children and adults of the time. A wide range of theoretical viewpoints is represented, and an effort is made to integrate the models and empirical findings, as well as place them in a common perspective and elucidate the general issues and questions relevant to these various approaches. The study of logical reasoning was undergoing rapid expansion at the time and this volume brings together the latest thinking in the area, in such a way that the relation between Piagetian and non-Piagetian traditions are examined, as well as the connection between the study of reasoning and the area of linguistic inquiry. The discussions of metatheoretical issues, such as the notion of logical competence and separability of representation and logical processing, as regards the various models presented herein, made this volume required reading for all those interested in reasoning in children and adults at the time.

Diagrammatic Representation and Inference

Diagrammatic Representation and Inference
Author: Dave Barker-Plummer
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2006-06-29
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 354035624X

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Theory and Application of Diagrams, Stanford, CA, USA in June 2006. 13 revised full papers, 9 revised short papers, and 12 extended abstracts are presented together with 2 keynote papers and 2 tutorial papers. The papers are organized in topical sections on diagram comprehension by humans and machines, notations: history, design and formalization, diagrams and education, reasoning with diagrams by humans and machines, and psychological issues in comprehension, production and communication.