Symmetry and asymmetry between inferences between disjunctions and conditionals

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.

Getting the Full Picture in English and Spanish?

Drawing on the mental model theory of fictional characters (Schneider, 2001) applied to audio description (Fresno, 2016), this paper examines the audio description (AD) of characters in English and Spanish for the Netflix series Élite. The study is based on the premise that semantic descriptions of characters, rather than merely visual descriptions of physical traits, contribute to a better understanding of the narrative complexities of a film, favour AD users’ memory, and reduce cognitive effort (Fresno et al., 2016). This contrastive analysis shows how pertinent description of action movements and appearances together with lexical accuracy can trigger helpful semantic meanings that reveal characters’ psychological features. Because Élite is a thriller in which the majority of the characters are murder suspects, accessing all types of information about them is essential to fully understand the plot. In addition, this analysis indicates that the English AD emphasizes certain character attributes which are absent from the Spanish AD, a distinction that influences the semantic domains, filmic cohesion and coherence of the narrative. This finding underscores the fact that cross-linguistic and cultural differences actually affect the reception of a fictional character by AD users (Orero, 2008; Mazur & Chmiel, 2012) and consequently, their appreciation and enjoyment of the program in question. Lay summary This paper examines the audio description (AD) of characters in English and Spanish for the Netflix series Élite. Based on previous studies (Fresno, 2014; Fresno, 2016), this analysis shows that not only physical traits, but also the description of action movements and looks can trigger helpful semantic inferences that reveal crucial characters’ psychological features. Because Élite is a thriller in which most of the characters are murder suspects, grasping all types of information about them is essential to fully understand the plot. In addition, this paper indicates that the English AD emphasizes certain character attributes which are absent in the Spanish AD. This finding underscores the fact that cross-linguistic and cultural differences actually affect the reception of a fictional character by AD users (Orero, 2008; Mazur & Chmiel, 2012) and consequently, their appreciation and enjoyment of the show in question.

A semantic violation account for the reading of negated general disjunctions

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.

Formal inferences and their relationships to knowledge acquisition: mental models and semantic links

The mental model theory is an approach with clear psychological, linguistic, and cognitive consequences. This paper delves into some of the epistemological conclusions that can be drawn from it. In particular, it addresses the process why knowledge acquisition can modify the inferences people tend to make. That process is described by means of an example based on a well-known logical schema related to the conditional: Modus Tollendo Tollens.

Mental models, humorous texts and humour evaluation

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.

Wasonov izborni zadatak: Utjecaj upute, tipova kondicionala i tematskog materijala

Questions that were opened in previous research (Valerjev, 2000) are the aims of this one: First, to investigate instruction influence on results in Wason selection tasks (instruction varied from checking two cards to checking arbitrary minimum of cards). Furthermore, to investigate possible differences in answers due to the use of conditional or biconditional form of hypothesis in tasks, taking sequence effect into account. And finaly, to investigate differences in answers in respect to the material used in the task: abstract, neutral concrete, and concrete material that include the possibility of cheating (getting the benefit, without paying the price). The experiment was carried out on 64 participants that were randomly assigned to corresponding experimental situations in order to investigate the influence of four mentioned factors. Every participant solved six adequate selection tasks. Results showed that: a) there is no significant influence on results of solving sequence (conditional- biconditional and vice versa)', b) there is no (except in one case) significant difference in results between conditional and biconditional tasks, which supports the hypothesis about bias of perceiving conditionals as biconditionals; c) instruction has significant influence on results in a way that results were more stable and biases were more emphasized in the situation where instruction was to check two cards. An interesting finding was that this effect was not significant when biconditional rule was used, which can implicate that there was some interaction effect between instruction and type of conditional. Finally, d) it showed up that there was no significant difference in answers between abstract and neutral concrete tasks, but that there was significant difference in answers between concrete tasks that include possibility of cheating and other two types of used material (abstract and neutral concrete). These results are very interesting because they support Leda Cosmides’ evolution theory (1989) which claims that there exists a specific module of reasoning, which is sensitive to cheating. Results do not support pragmatic reasoning schema theory (Cheng and Holyoak, 1985) and mental model theory (Johnson- Laird and Byrne, 1991).

Echo questions as a means of building coherence in conversational discourse

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.