Human Reasoning: Deduction Rules or Mental Models, or Both?

A good deal of energy is currently being expended into discovering the fundamental machinery underlying deductive reasoning. Is it based upon mental models (arrays) or deduction rules (propositions)? The appeal of finding a “grand unified theory” of reasoning is obvious, but the likelihood of achieving this must also be considered. This paper discusses the use of experimental psychology in attempts to discover the processes associated with the fundamental reasoning mechanism. One particular problem is that individuals can use different strategies to solve reasoning problems. The consequences of this are assessed in relation to: (1) the assumptions underlying the experiments, (2) the choice of tasks and task presentations intended to enable the fundamental reasoning processes to be viewed directly, and (3) the power status of the theories and the nature of the evidence required to show that either theory is superior. Under close scrutiny the debate appears to be unresolvable by using empirical techniques. However, although the main conclusions are negative, it is suggested that approaches that directly investigate individual differences are likely to be useful alternatives.

[1]  M. Just,et al.  Cognitive coordinate systems: accounts of mental rotation and individual differences in spatial ability. , 1985, Psychological review.

[2]  P. Shaver,et al.  Converging evidence for the functional significance of imagery in problem solving , 1975, Cognition.

[3]  A. Newell.  Reasoning, problem solving, and decision processes: the problem space as a fundamental category , 1993 .

[4]  Eric A. Jenkins,et al.  How Children Discover New Strategies , 1989 .

[5]  Ruth M. J. Byrne,et al.  Meta-logical problems: Knights, knaves, and rips , 1990, Cognition.

[6]  K. Crowley,et al.  The microgenetic method. A direct means for studying cognitive development. , 1991, The American psychologist.

[7]  Marcel Adam Just,et al.  Sentence comprehension: A psycholinguistic processing model of verification. , 1975 .

[8]  D. Godden,et al.  An Investigation of the Relationships between Problem Solving Strategies, Representation and Memory , 1974 .

[9]  Jonathan St. B. T. Evans,et al.  Reasoning with knights and knaves: A discussion of rips , 1990, Cognition.

[10]  R. Sternberg,et al.  An Aptitude-Strategy Interaction in Linear Syllogistic Reasoning. , 1980 .

[11]  R. Siegler.  Hazards of mental chronometry: An example from children's subtraction. , 1989 .

[12]  J. Marquer,et al.  Reaction Times in the Study of Strategies in Sentence–Picture Verification: A Reconsideration , 1990 .

[13]  L. Rips.  Cognitive Processes in Propositional Reasoning. , 1983 .

[14]  M. Braine,et al.  A Theory of If: A Lexical Entry, Reasoning Program, and Pragmatic Principles , 1991 .

[15]  H. Simon,et al.  What makes some problems really hard: Explorations in the problem space of difficulty , 1990, Cognitive Psychology.

[16]  A. Newell.  You can't play 20 questions with nature and win : projective comments on the papers of this symposium , 1973 .

[17]  P. Johnson-Laird.  Mental models , 1989 .

[18]  Robert J. Sternberg,et al.  Reasoning, Problem Solving, and Intelligence. , 1980 .

[19]  S. Handel,et al.  Social reasoning and spatial paralogic. , 1965, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  H. Simon,et al.  Why are some problems hard? Evidence from Tower of Hanoi , 1985, Cognitive Psychology.

[21]  L. Rips.  The psychology of knights and knaves , 1989, Cognition.

[22]  Patrick C. Kyllonen,et al.  Effects of Aptitudes, Strategy Training, and Task Facets on Spatial Task Performance. , 1984 .

[23]  Stephen J. Payne,et al.  Internalizing and the Use Specificity of Device Knowledge , 1993, Hum. Comput. Interact..

[24]  Patrick C. Kyllonen,et al.  Componential modeling of alternative strategies for performing spatial tasks , 1984 .

[25]  J Baron,et al.  Individual differences in syllogistic reasoning: deduction rules or mental models? , 1986, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[26]  M Roberts.  Individual differences and strategy selection in problem solving. , 1991 .

[27]  R. Siegler.  The perils of averaging data over strategies: An example from children's addition. , 1987 .

[28]  Brian J. Reiser,et al.  Some Empirical Justification for a Theory of Natural Propositional Logic , 1984 .

[29]  Lance J. Rips,et al.  Paralogical reasoning: Evans, Johnson-Laird, and Byrne on liar and truth-teller puzzles , 1990, Cognition.

[30]  Earl Hunt,et al.  Individual Differences in the Verification of Sentence-Picture Relationships , 1978 .

[31]  P. Johnson-Laird,et al.  Propositional reasoning by model. , 1992, Psychological review.

[32]  Jonathan S. Evans,et al.  Bias in human reasoning , 1990 .

[33]  Jeffrey Coney.  Individual differences and task format in sentence verification , 1988 .

[34]  M. Braine.  On the Relation Between the Natural Logic of Reasoning and Standard Logic. , 1978 .

[35]  D. Wood,et al.  A Preliminary Study of Distinctive Features in Problem Solving , 1973 .

[36]  Jonathan St. B. T. Evans,et al.  Theories of Human Reasoning: The Fragmented State of the Art , 1991 .

[37]  Ira A. Noveck,et al.  Predicting propositional logic inferences in text comprehension , 1990 .

[38]  Judith F. Kroll,et al.  Strategies in sentence—picture verification: The effect of an unexpected picture , 1981 .

[39]  D. Egan,et al.  Differences in mental representations spontaneously adopted for reasoning , 1982, Memory & cognition.

[40]  Philip N. Johnson-Laird,et al.  Reasoning by model: The case of multiple quantification. , 1989 .