Abstract
The present experiment considers whether the internal structure of statements plays a role in the way students reason about hypothetical domains. Students were asked to assign truth values to statements to form a consistent set of relations about hypothetical situations. The statements varied in degree of structure along two dimensions: across categories organization (generality) and within-categories organization (typicality). The results show that when generalities affirm a relation, they are readily accepted as defining a domain. The addition of within-categories structure makes only a marginal contribution to decisions. In contrast, there is a semantic structure effect for generalities that deny a relation. The findings accord with a two-stage process derived from a generality coding model.
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Redding-Stewart, D., Revlin, R. Hypothetical inference and category structure. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 12, 465–467 (1978). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329738
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329738