Linking structures and sensitivity to judgment-relevant information in statistical and logical reasoning tasks.

1990 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 841-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yechiel Klar
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 503-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim De Neys ◽  
Gordon Pennycook

Studies on human reasoning have long established that intuitions can bias inference and lead to violations of logical norms. Popular dual-process models, which characterize thinking as an interaction between intuitive (System 1) and deliberate (System 2) thought processes, have presented an appealing explanation for this observation. According to this account, logical reasoning is traditionally considered as a prototypical example of a task that requires effortful deliberate thinking. In recent years, however, a number of findings obtained with new experimental paradigms have brought into question the traditional dual-process characterization. A key observation is that people can process logical principles in classic reasoning tasks intuitively and without deliberation. We review the paradigms and sketch how this work is leading to the development of revised dual-process models.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Ziaei ◽  
Mohammad Reza Bonyadi ◽  
David C. Reutens

AbstractReasoning requires initial encoding of the semantic association between premises or assumptions, retrieval of these semantic associations from memory, and recombination of information to draw a logical conclusion. Currently-held beliefs can interfere with the content of the assumptions if not congruent and inhibited. This study aimed to investigate the role of the hippocampus and hippocampal networks during logical reasoning tasks in which the congruence between currently-held beliefs and assumptions varies. Participants of younger and older age completed a series of syllogistic reasoning tasks in which two premises and one conclusion were presented and they were required to decide if the conclusion logically followed the premises. The belief load of premises was manipulated to be either congruent or incongruent with currently-held beliefs. Our whole-brain results showed that older adults recruited the hippocampus during the premise integration stage more than their younger counterparts. Functional connectivity using a hippocampal seed revealed that older, but not younger, adults recruited a hippocampal network that included anterior cingulate and inferior frontal regions when premises were believable. Importantly, this network contributed to better performance in believable inferences, only in older adults group. Further analyses suggested that, in older adults group, the integrity of the left cingulum bundle was associated with the higher correct rejection of believable premises more than unbelievable ones. Using multimodal imaging, this study highlights the importance of the hippocampus during premise integration and supports the compensatory role of the hippocampal network during a logical reasoning task among older adults.


2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrike Hahn

AbstractOne of the most striking features of “Bayesian rationality” is the detail with which behavior on logical reasoning tasks can now be predicted and explained. This detail is surprising, given the state of the field 10 to 15 years ago, and it has been brought about by a theoretical program that largely ignores consideration of cognitive processes, that is, any kind of internal behavior that generates overt responding. It seems that an increase in explanatory power can be achieved by restricting a psychological theory.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 1673-1694
Author(s):  
Hugo Bronkhorst ◽  
Gerrit Roorda ◽  
Cor Suhre ◽  
Martin Goedhart

AbstractLogical reasoning is of great societal importance and, as stressed by the twenty-first century skills framework, also seen as a key aspect for the development of critical thinking. This study aims at exploring secondary school students’ logical reasoning strategies in formal reasoning and everyday reasoning tasks. With task-based interviews among 4 16- and 17-year-old pre-university students, we explored their reasoning strategies and the reasoning difficulties they encounter. In this article, we present results from linear ordering tasks, tasks with invalid syllogisms and a task with implicit reasoning in a newspaper article. The linear ordering tasks and the tasks with invalid syllogisms are presented formally (with symbols) and non-formally in ordinary language (without symbols). In tasks that were familiar to our students, they used rule-based reasoning strategies and provided correct answers although their initial interpretation differed. In tasks that were unfamiliar to our students, they almost always used informal interpretations and their answers were influenced by their own knowledge. When working on the newspaper article task, the students did not use strong formal schemes, which could have provided a clear overview. At the end of the article, we present a scheme showing which reasoning strategies are used by students in different types of tasks. This scheme might increase teachers’ awareness of the variety in reasoning strategies and can guide classroom discourse during courses on logical reasoning. We suggest that using suitable formalisations and visualisations might structure and improve students’ reasoning as well.


Author(s):  
Hugo Bronkhorst ◽  
Gerrit Roorda ◽  
Cor Suhre ◽  
Martin Goedhart

AbstractDue to growing interest in twenty-first-century skills, and critical thinking as a key element, logical reasoning is gaining increasing attention in mathematics curricula in secondary education. In this study, we report on an analysis of video recordings of student discussions in one class of seven students who were taught with a specially designed course in logical reasoning for non-science students (12th graders). During the course of 10 lessons, students worked on a diversity of logical reasoning tasks: both closed tasks where all premises were provided and everyday reasoning tasks with implicit premises. The structure of the course focused on linking different modes of representation (enactive, iconic, and symbolic), based on the model of concreteness fading (Fyfe et al., 2014). Results show that students easily link concrete situations to certain iconic referents, such as formal (letter) symbols, but need more practice for others, such as Venn and Euler diagrams. We also show that the link with the symbolic mode, i.e. an interpretation with more general and abstract models, is not that strong. This might be due to the limited time spent on further practice. However, in the transition from concrete to symbolic via the iconic mode, students may take a step back to a visual representation, which shows that working on such links is useful for all students. Overall, we conclude that the model of concreteness fading can support education in logical reasoning. One recommendation is to devote sufficient time to establishing links between different types of referents and representations.


2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim De Neys

AbstractMercier and Sperber (M&S) sketch a bleak picture of logical reasoning in classic, nonargumentative tasks. I argue that recent processing data indicate that despite people's poor performance they at least seek to adhere to traditional logical norms in these tasks. This implies that classic reasoning tasks are less artificial–and logical reasoning less exceptional–than M&S's framework suggests.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie Kurth

Abstract Recent work by emotion researchers indicates that emotions have a multilevel structure. Sophisticated sentimentalists should take note of this work – for it better enables them to defend a substantive role for emotion in moral cognition. Contra May's rationalist criticisms, emotions are not only able to carry morally relevant information, but can also substantially influence moral judgment and reasoning.


Author(s):  
H. Weiland ◽  
D. P. Field

Recent advances in the automatic indexing of backscatter Kikuchi diffraction patterns on the scanning electron microscope (SEM) has resulted in the development of a new type of microscopy. The ability to obtain statistically relevant information on the spatial distribution of crystallite orientations is giving rise to new insight into polycrystalline microstructures and their relation to materials properties. A limitation of the technique in the SEM is that the spatial resolution of the measurement is restricted by the relatively large size of the electron beam in relation to various microstructural features. Typically the spatial resolution in the SEM is limited to about half a micron or greater. Heavily worked structures exhibit microstructural features much finer than this and require resolution on the order of nanometers for accurate characterization. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) techniques offer sufficient resolution to investigate heavily worked crystalline materials.Crystal lattice orientation determination from Kikuchi diffraction patterns in the TEM (Figure 1) requires knowledge of the relative positions of at least three non-parallel Kikuchi line pairs in relation to the crystallite and the electron beam.


2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 141-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kira Bailey ◽  
Gregory Mlynarczyk ◽  
Robert West

Abstract. Working memory supports our ability to maintain goal-relevant information that guides cognition in the face of distraction or competing tasks. The N-back task has been widely used in cognitive neuroscience to examine the functional neuroanatomy of working memory. Fewer studies have capitalized on the temporal resolution of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to examine the time course of neural activity in the N-back task. The primary goal of the current study was to characterize slow wave activity observed in the response-to-stimulus interval in the N-back task that may be related to maintenance of information between trials in the task. In three experiments, we examined the effects of N-back load, interference, and response accuracy on the amplitude of the P3b following stimulus onset and slow wave activity elicited in the response-to-stimulus interval. Consistent with previous research, the amplitude of the P3b decreased as N-back load increased. Slow wave activity over the frontal and posterior regions of the scalp was sensitive to N-back load and was insensitive to interference or response accuracy. Together these findings lead to the suggestion that slow wave activity observed in the response-to-stimulus interval is related to the maintenance of information between trials in the 1-back task.


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