Abstract
Reasoning with conditionals involving causal content is known to be affected by retrieval of counterexamples from semantic memory. In this study we examined the characteristics of this search process in everyday conditional reasoning. In Experiment 1 we manipulated the number (zero to four) of explicitly presented counterexamples (alternative causes or disabling conditions) for causal conditionals. In Experiment 2, using a generation pretest, we measured the number of counterexamples participants could retrieve for a set of causal conditionals. One month after the pretest, participants were presented a reasoning task with the same conditionals. The experiments indicated that acceptance of modus ponens linearly decreased with every additionally retrieved disabler, whereas affirmation of the consequent acceptance linearly decreased as a function of the number of retrieved alternatives. Results for denial of the antecedent and modus tollens were less clear. The findings show that the search process does not necessarily stop after retrieval of a single counterexample and that every additional counterexample has an impact on the inference acceptance.
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This research was supported by grants from the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders (FWO). Parts of this study were presented at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Washington, DC (2002), and the Phil Johnson-Laird workshop on deductive reasoning, Ghent (2002).
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De Neys, W., Schaeken, W. & D’Ydewalle, G. Inference suppression and semantic memory retrieval: Every counterexample counts. Memory & Cognition 31, 581–595 (2003). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196099
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196099