scholarly journals Symmetry and asymmetry between inferences between disjunctions and conditionals

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moyun Wang
Keyword(s):  
Model Theory ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Response Pattern ◽  
Probabilistic Approach ◽  
The Other ◽  
Material Implication ◽  
Mental Model Theory ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
A Current ◽  
Mental Logic

How people make inferences between disjunctions and conditionals is a current important question that can test existing main psychological accounts (mental logic, the probabilistic approach, the original and revised mental model theory) for propositional reasoning. In order to test these accounts, one experiment investigated how relations (material implication, subcontrariety, contradiction, and contrariety) between two basic components (A and C) in disjunctions (e.g., A or C; not-A or C) and conditionals (e.g., if not-A then C; if A then C) and inference directions (disjunction-to-conditional versus conditional-to-disjunction) between disjunctions and their corresponding conditionals affect human inferences between both. It was found that participants’ inferences were symmetric between the two inference directions in compatible relations and incompatible relations where two basic components were on different dimensions, but not in the other relations. Which of the two inference directions was easier depended on relations between two basic components, because some relations tended to elicit particular interpretations of premises and conclusions, or belief biases. The present overall response pattern is beyond all the existing accounts for inferences between disjunctions and conditionals. Inferences between disjunctions and conditionals are complex and so there may not be a unified account for them.

scholarly journals A semantic violation account for the reading of negated general disjunctions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moyun Wang
Keyword(s):  
Model Theory ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mental Model Theory ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Meaning

Few previous studies have investigated how people read the negation of a general disjunction that refers to a set of objects (It is not true that xs are p or q). We develop four alternative accounts for the negation. The original mental model theory interprets the negation as the negation of the disjunction of possibilities allowed by the general disjunction. The revised mental model theory interprets it as the negation of the conjunction of possibilities allowed by the general disjunction. The probabilistic violation account interprets it as the probabilistic violation of the general disjunction by introducing nonnegligible exceptions. A normative semantic violation account interprets the negation as the semantic qualitative violation of the general disjunction by introducing exceptions. Three experiments systematically investigated the reading of negated general disjunctions in different possibility and truth judgment tasks. Participants’ possibility and truth judgments provide convergent evidence that a negated general disjunction is consistent with only sets containing ¬p¬q cases regardless of whether other cases are present or not, and people prefer to the semantic violation interpretation of negated general disjunctions. These findings favour the semantic violation account over the other accounts. This implies that the core meaning of a general disjunction is the rule represented by it, but not the set of possibilities referred to by it.

The Mental Model Theory of Conditionals: A Reply to Guy Politzer

Topoi ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip N. Johnson-Laird ◽  
Ruth M. J. Byrne ◽  
Vittorio Girotto
Keyword(s):  
Model Theory ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Mental Model Theory

Mental models, humorous texts and humour evaluation

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henri de Jongste
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Model Theory ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Model Construction ◽  
Mental Model Theory ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Manipulation Process ◽  
The Way

Abstract This paper investigates how a mental-model theory of communication can explain differences in humorous texts and how aesthetic criteria to evaluate humour are dependent on the way mental models are exploited. Humour is defined as the deliberate manipulation by speakers of their private mental models of situations in order to create public mental models which contain one or more incongruities. Recipients can re-construct this manipulation process and thereby evaluate its nature and its quality. Humorous texts can be distinguished in terms of ownership of the manipulated mental model, the relationship between the speakers’ private and their public (humorous) mental model, as well as the speed required in the humorous mental model construction. Possible aesthetic criteria are the quality of the mental model manipulation, the pressure under which the humorously manipulated mental models have been constructed and the quality of the presentation of humorous mental models.

Is the self-organizing consciousness framework compatible with human deductive reasoning?

2002 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-331
Author(s):  
Pierre Barrouillet ◽  
Henry Markovits
Keyword(s):  
Model Theory ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Deductive Reasoning ◽  
The Self ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Mental Model Theory ◽  
Self Organizing

As stressed by Perruchet & Vinter, the SOC model echoes Johnson-Laird's mental model theory. Indeed, the latter rejects rule-based processing and assumes that reasoning is achieved through the manipulation of conscious representations. However, the mental model theory as well as its modified versions resorts to the abstraction of complex schemas and some form of implicit logic that seems incompatible with the SOC approach.

scholarly journals Echo questions as a means of building coherence in conversational discourse

Lege Artis ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 336-378
Author(s):  
Natalia Strelchenko
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Model Theory ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Discourse Comprehension ◽  
Context Model ◽  
Conversational Discourse ◽  
Mental Model Theory ◽  
Mental Context ◽  
Echo Questions

Abstract The study focuses on the cognitive-communicative characteristics of echo questions in English conversational discourse. Drawing on van Dijk's sociocognitive (mental model) theory and cognitive discourse analysis, the paper suggests viewing echo questions as a means of building/updating a mental context model of a communicative situation. As discourse comprehension presupposes building its coherent mental model, echo questions resolving misunderstanding are regarded as an instrument for increasing coherence in conversational discourse. Based on the mental model theory, the study offers a typology of misunderstandings corrected by echo questions.

Evaluating Expertise in a Complex Domain–Measures Based on Theory

1993 ◽  
Vol 37 (17) ◽  
pp. 1152-1155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean MacMillan ◽  
Eileen B. Entin ◽  
Daniel Serfaty
Keyword(s):  
Model Theory ◽  
Real World ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Expert Performance ◽  
The Real ◽  
Domain Experts ◽  
Mental Model Theory ◽  
Military Command ◽  
Expertise Level

Human factors practitioners are often concerned with defining and evaluating expertise in complex domains where there may be no agreed-upon expertise levels, no single right answers to problems, and where the observation and measurement of real-world expert performance is difficult. This paper reports the results of an experiment in which expertise was assessed in an extremely complex and demanding domain–military command decision making in tactical warfare. The hypotheses of the experiment were: 1) command decisionmaking expertise can be recognized in practice by domain experts; 2) differences in the command decisionmaking expertise of individuals can be identified even under conditions that do not fully replicate the real world; and 3) observers who are not domain experts can recognize the expert behaviors predicted by a mental-model theory about the nature of expertise. In the experiment, the expertise of military officers in developing tactical plans was assessed independently by three “super-expert” judges, and these expertise-level ratings were correlated with independent theory-based measures used by observers who were not domain experts. The results suggest that experts in a domain have a shared underlying concept of expertise in that domain even if they cannot articulate that concept, that this expertise can be elicited and measured in situations that do not completely mimic the real world, and that expertise measures based on a mental-model theory can be used effectively by observers who are not experts in the domain.

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