Mental models theory and relevance theory in quantificational reasoning

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Nicolle
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Linguistic Pragmatics ◽  
Procedural Information ◽  
Reasoning Tasks ◽  
The Way ◽  
Mental Models Theory

Human reasoning involving quantified statements is one area in which findings from cognitive psychology and linguistic pragmatics complement each other. I will show how mental models theory provides a promising account of the mechanisms underlying peoples’ performance in three types of reasoning tasks involving quantified premises and conclusions. I will further suggest that relevance theory can help to explain the way in which mental models are employed in the reasoning processes. Conversely, mental models theory suggests that human reasoning typically does not involve deductive rules, which in turn entails a modification to the nature of the deductive processes proposed by relevance theory. The mechanism proposed by mental models theory also helps to clarify the nature of the relevance theory distinction between conceptual and procedural information.

scholarly journals The Problems of the Mental Logic with the Double Negation: The Necessity of a Semantic Approach

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-153
Author(s):  
Miguel López-Astorga
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Double Negation ◽  
Semantic Approach ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Syntactic Theories ◽  
Mental Logic ◽  
Mental Models Theory

Abstract The double negation has always been considered by the logical systems from ancient times to the present. In fact, that is an issue that the current syntactic theories studying human reasoning, for example, the mental logic theory, address today. However, in this paper, I claim that, in the case of some languages such as Spanish, the double negation causes problems for the cognitive theories mainly based on formal schemata and supporting the idea of a universal syntax of thought in the human mind. Thus, I propose that, given those problems, semantic frameworks such as that of the mental models theory seem to be more appropriate for explaining the human inferential activity.

scholarly journals There Can be a Syntax of Thought Related to Logical Forms

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 270-278
Author(s):  
Miguel López-Astorga
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Axiomatic System ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Basic Framework ◽  
The Way ◽  
Mental Models Theory

Abstract Nowadays, a very important theory, the mental models theory, is demonstrating that it is able to explain most of the results in reasoning experiments reported by the cognitive science literature. However, this has a consequence. The mental models theory is mainly focused on content and meaning, and its theses can lead to reject the idea that syntax plays a role in the human mind and that reasoning is logical. But, in this paper, I try to show that it is possible to accept the basic framework of the mental models theory and, at the same time, to continue to claim that there are syntactic and formal logical processes coherent with the way our mind works. To do that, I argue that, even accepting that the mental models theory describes correctly the processes why certain combinations of possibilities are detected, it can be stated that the relationships between such combinations indicated by the theory are consistent with, for example, the modal axiomatic system K.

scholarly journals Analytic Sentences, Cognition, and Language: Some Links between Current Theories

2019 ◽  
pp. 61-69
Author(s):  
Miguel López-Astorga
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Probability Logic ◽  
Mental Logic ◽  
The Way ◽  
Mental Models Theory

This paper tries to explore possible relations and differences between three kinds of contemporary theories about cognition and language: the approaches supporting the idea that there is a mental logic, the mental models theory, and the frameworks based upon probability logic. That exploration is made here by means of the analytic sentences and the revision of the way each of those types of theories can deal with them. The conclusions seem to show that the three kinds of theories address such sentences in a similar manner, which can mean that there can be more links between them than thought.

A cognitive-pragmatic approach to error analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-40
Author(s):  
Teresa Maria Włosowicz
Keyword(s):  
Error Analysis ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Error Sources ◽  
Production Study ◽  
Mental Models Theory ◽  
Graded Salience

Abstract The purpose of the present paper is to analyze L2 and L3 production and comprehension from a cognitive-pragmatic point of view, taking into account Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1986; Wilson and Sperber, 2006), Mental Models Theory (Johnson-Laird, 1983) and the Graded Salience Hypothesis (Giora, 1997). Special attention is paid to error analysis and to the detection of error sources, especially in the case of errors not attributable to transfer, interference or overgeneralization. The paper is based on three studies involving, first, L2 and L3 production (Study 1), both production and comprehension (Study 2) and L3 comprehension (Study 3). In general, the phenomena observed can be explained by a combination of Relevance Theory, Mental Models Theory and the Graded Salience Hypothesis. In fact, even when transfer is used as a strategy, its use is relevant to the learner, who assumes that it will be relevant to the recipient as well. The results also shed some light on the multilingual mental lexicon and multiple language processing.

scholarly journals Evolved Mechanisms Versus Underlying Conditional Relations

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel López Astorga
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Logical Form ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conditional Relations ◽  
Social Contracts Theory ◽  
Mental Models Theory

Abstract The social contracts theory claims that, in social exchange circumstances, human reasoning is not necessarily led by logic, but by certain evolved mental mechanisms that are useful for catching offenders. An emblematic experiment carried out with the intention to prove this thesis is the first experiment described by Fiddick, Cosmides, and Tooby in their paper of 2000. Lopez Astorga has questioned that experiment claiming that its results depend on an underlying conditional logical form not taken into account by Fiddick, Cosmides, and Tooby. In this paper, I propose an explanation alternative to that of Lopez Astorga, which does not depend on logical forms and is based on the mental models theory. Thus, I conclude that this other alternative explanation is one more proof that the experiment in question does not demonstrate the fundamental thesis of the social contracts theory.

scholarly journals Does Aristotelian logic describe human reasoning? Valid syllogisms and canonical models

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel López-Astorga
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Canonical Models ◽  
Aristotelian Logic ◽  
Mental Models Theory

In the case of quantified propositions, the mental models theory distinguishes between canonical and noncanonical models. While people identify the canonical models in an immediate, rapid, and easy way, the noncanonical models cannot be detected without reflection and cognitive effort. In this paper, I try to show that all of the valid syllogisms in Aristotelian logic can be considered to be correct by resorting only to the canonical models of their sentences. In this way, I argue that this means that Aristotelian logic can be a useful criterion to explain, describe, and even predict people’s conclusions from quantified assertions.

Deontic Reasoning, Mental Models Theory and Traffic Signs Information

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Vargas ◽  
Sergio Moreno-Rios ◽  
Candida Castro ◽  
Geoffrey Underwood
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Traffic Signs ◽  
Deontic Reasoning ◽  
Mental Models Theory

scholarly journals The Cognitive Psychology of Rules of Interpretation in International Law

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 258-262
Author(s):  
Anne van Aaken
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
International Law ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Treaty Law ◽  
Psychology Perspective ◽  
The Law ◽  
Biases And Heuristics ◽  
The Way

While Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) prescribe the rules of interpretation for international treaty law as “disciplining rules,” the rules of interpretation themselves are understudied from a cognitive psychology perspective. This is problematic because, as Jerome Frank observed, “judges are incurably human,” like everybody else. I submit that behavioral approaches could provide insights into how biases and heuristics affect the way judges and other interpreters use the VCLT rules.

What is a “difficult poem”? Towards a definition

2008 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Yaron
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Text Comprehension ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Modern Poetry ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Poetic Texts ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

AbstractModern poetry developed and transformed difficulty into a prominent aesthetic norm of poetry. The abundance of difficult poetic texts necessitates a study of the corpus. After differentiating between the way difficulty is perceived in poetry and in other communicative acts, I present the approach that I have adopted for the purpose of studying difficult poetry. In contrast to other studies which have examined difficulty from the author's perspective and, as a consequence, described factors that cause textual difficulty, I propose to examine the subject from the reader's point of view. The reader, after all, is the one who feels or does not feel the difficulty. The concept ‘difficult poem’ is necessarily interdisciplinary and the question of what is “difficult” involves cognitive psychology and its models of text comprehension. Following a discussion of these domains, I present the “definition” that I propose for the ‘difficult poem’.

Interface, Interact, Improvact

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-78
Author(s):  
Kristian Kloeckl
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Interaction Design ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Design Domain ◽  
Human Machine Interaction ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Machine Interaction ◽  
The Way

This chapter is dedicated to models of human-machine interaction (HCI) that have been influential for the design domain and that form the basis of how we think about designing human-machine interactions today. Digital networked technologies have become increasingly pervasive in today's urban environments. But regardless of the urban dimension, the domains of HCI and interaction design have long examined design approaches that take into account the ways in which humans relate to technologies. Different ways of thinking about the interaction between humans and machines have informed the way we work with technologies. The mental models one adopts when working with technologies contribute not only to how they are viewed but also to how these technologies are shaped in substantial ways.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document