Preferred Mental Models: How and Why They Are So Important in Human Reasoning with Spatial Relations

According to the mental models theory, humans reason by constructing, inspecting, and validating mental models of the state of affairs described in the premises. We present a formal framework describing all three phases and testing new predictions about the construction principle humans normally use and about the deduction process itself - the model variation phase. Finally, empirical findings in support of these principles are reported.

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