Reasoning Flashcards
What is Deductive reasoning?
a logical approach where you progress from general ideas to specific conclusions
it is a top-down process of understanding whether an assumption is true, based on logic
What is Conditional reasoning?
refers to making inferences based on a conditional statement of the form “if p, then q”
For instance, “if it is raining, my hair will get wet”
DR theory - Abstract-rule theory (Braine, 1978)
Abstract rule theory states that people do reason logically but make mistakes for reasons such as:
- they misunderstand the task
- required reasoning places too many demands on working memory
Performance can be improved by presenting additional clarifying sentences (to reduce errors)
Mental model theory (Johnson-Laird, 1999)
states that everyday comprehension processes (mental models) are used on reasoning problems
- Which means that when a reasoning problem arises, people created a mental model to represent the premises.
- Therefore, when you are engaged in reasoning you are trying to look at the mental models created over time, trying to create alternative mental model with better fit for problem ahead
- Individuals tend to construct mental models to represent explicitly only what is true
The mental model theory assumes that people rely on their mental models- based on their understandings of the world, experiences, perceptions, and their personal life.
Dual systems approach (Evans, 2003)
The dual system approach states that individuals use:
- Heuristic-based process
- Analytic-based process
In order to make decisions
Heuristic-based process
- Heuristics is a process by which humans use mental short cuts to arrive at decisions
- Heuristics are simple strategies that humans use to quickly form judgments, decisions and, find solutions to complex problems
According to dual-process theories, moral judgments are the result of two processes:
A fast automatic, affect-driven process (heuristic) and a slow, deliberative, reason-based process (analytic)
Probabilistic approach (Oaksford and Chater, 2001)
People use probabilistic reasoning rather than logic to solve deductive reasoning tasks
- Selection task is not deductive, but a matter of data selection
(Oaksford and Chater, 2001) Conducted a meta-analysis of over 30 experiments using different versions of the selection task
Wason selection task
Wason’s four card selection task involves four ‘facts’ that are presented in the form of cards
- Each card has one piece of information on one side and another piece of information on the other side
- The conditional hypothesis to be evaluated has to do with the relationship between the info on the two sides of the cards
The solution to the selection task is to select the p and the not-q cards and ignore the not-p and q cards
Answer: D and 7
(Oaksford and Chater, 2001)
The probabilistic approach was originally applied to Wason’s selection task- in which participants must select cards to found out whether a rule (if there is an A on one side of the card (p), there is a 2 on the other side (q) is true or false.
- the participants’ goal is to select evidence (from cards) that would be expected to produce the greatest reduction in this problem.
- The selection of cards that seemingly demonstrates human irrationality might reflect a rational data-selection strategy
