How Does the Process of Interaction Work When Two Interlocutors Try to Resolve a Logical Problem

Despite the technical, methodological, and theoretical progress made in recent years (Trognon, 1988, 1989, 1990), the mechanisms involved in the process of interaction when two interlocutors want to communicate or, more precisely, in the interactional mechanisms of the production of cognition (either common or individual cognition) remain a mystery. We have a great deal of information about the conditions that determine the efficiency of interaction (cf. Doise, 1985/1988; Doise & Mugny, 1981; Flieller, 1990; Glachan & Light, 1982; Hinde, Perret-Clermont, & Stevenson-Hinde, 1985/1988; Mugny, 1985; Perret-Clermont, 1979; Perret-Clermont & Nicolet, 1988) but very little on the process of interaction itself. There are several reasons for this, the most important of which are: (a) the preference, in studies dedicated to the interactional construction of cognition, for a pretest-interaction phase-posttest paradigm (Carugati, 1988; Trognon, 1984); and (b) the fact that cognition brought about by interaction does not necessarily emerge during the interaction (Doise, 1985; Perret-Clermont & Brossard, 1985/1988). The second reason is more important than the first, because it limits very seriously the scope of the "microgenetic approach" (Rogoff, 1990; Wertsch & Sammarco, 1985/1988; see Trognon, 1990). But even within this scope, few studies describe the interactional production of cognition. This is the purpose of the present work. Thus, for two complementary reasons, we (Retornaz, 1990; Retornaz & Trognon, 1990; Trognon, 1990; Trognon & Retornaz, 1989) have chosen a logical problem: the problem of the "four cards" (Wason & Johnson-Laird, 1972). First, it is easier to describe the interactional emergence of a logical notion than that of an encyclopedic one. Second, this kind of problem has often been analyzed