Cognition and Conditionals

Probability and Logic in Human Thinking
Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-19-923329-8
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 418 Seiten, Format (B × H): 175 mm x 250 mm, Gewicht: 900 g

Organised to reflect the focus of different theories on different aspects of the cognitive system, helping the reader to see how the many theories in this areas may relate to each other
Contains an extended introduction relating the history of the psychology of conditional reasoning to the logic and formal semantics of conditionals, helping the reader to see how normative theories of the conditional and descriptive theories relate (or have failed to relate) to each other
Presents state of the art chapters by the leading figures in the field, providing the reader with definitive statements of the leading figures current thinking in this area

The conditional, if...then, is probably the most important term in natural language and forms the core of systems of logic and mental representation. It occurs in all human languages and allows people to express their knowledge of the causal or law-like structure of the world and of others' behaviour, e.g., if you turn the key the car starts, if John walks the dog he stops for a pint of beer; to make promises, e.g., if you cook tonight, I'll wash up all week; to regulate behaviour, e.g., if you are drinking beer, you must be over 18 years of age; to suggest what would have happened had things been different, e.g., if the match had been dry it would have lit, among many other possible uses. The way in which the conditional is modelled also determines the core of most logical systems. Unsurprisingly, it is also the most researched expression in the psychology of human reasoning.

Cognition and Conditionals is the first volume for over 20 years (On Conditionals, 1986, CUP) that brings together recent developments in the cognitive science and psychology of conditional reasoning. Over the last 10 to 15 years, research on conditionals has come to dominate the psychology of reasoning providing a rich seam of results that have created new theoretical possibilities. This book shows how these developments have led researchers to view people's conditional reasoning behaviour more as succesful probabilistic reasoning rather than as errorful logical reasoning. It shows how the multifarious, and apparently competing, theoretical positions developed over the last 50 years in this area - mental logics, mental models, heuristic approaches, dual process theory, and probabilistic approaches-have responded to these insights. Ist organisation reflects the view that an integrative approach is emerging that may need to exploit aspects of all these theoretical positions to explain the rich and complex phenomenon of reasoning with conditionals. It includes an introductory chapter relating the development of the psychology of reasoning to developments in the logic and semantics of the conditional. It also includes chapters by many of the leading figures in this field.

Zielgruppe

Students and researchers in cognitive and experimental psychology, decision making, logic.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Oaksford, Mike

Chater, Nick

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Kognitionspsychologie Intelligenz, Denken, Problemlösen
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Erkenntnistheorie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Neurowissenschaften, Kognitionswissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1: Mike Oaksford & Nick Chater: Cognition and conditionals: An Introduction
Working Memory: Function, Representation, and Process
Logic
2: David O'Brien & Andrea Manfrinati: The mental logic theory of conditional propositions
3: Ruth Byrne & Phil Johnson-Laird: Conditionals and possibilities
4: Walter Schroyens: Logic and/in psychology: The paradoxes of material implication and psychologism in the cognitive science of human reasoning
5: Keith Stenning& Michiel van Lambalgen: The logical response to a noisy world
Probability
6: Vittorio Girotto & Phil Johnson-Laird: Conditionals and probability
7: Nilufa Ali, Anne Schlottman, Abigail Shaw, Nick Chater, & Mike Oaksford: Causal discounting and conditional reasoning in children
8: David Over, Jonathan Evans, & Shira Elqayam: Conditionals and non-constructive reasoning
9: Niki Pfeifer & Gernot Kleiter: The conditional in mental probability logic
Long Term Memory: Function, Representation, and Process
Logic
10: Henry Markovits: Semantic memory retrieval, mental models, and the development of conditional inferences in children
11: Wim De Neys: Counterexample retrieval and inhibition during conditional reasoning: Direct evidence from memory probing
Probability
12: Denise Cummins: How semantic memory processes temper causal inferences
13: In-mao Liu: A successive-conditionalization approach to conditional reasoning
14: Jean-Francois Bonnefon & Guy Politzer: Pragmatic conditionals, conditional pragmatics, and the pragmatic component of conditional reasoning
Integrative Approaches
15: Bob Kowalski: Reasoning with conditionals in artificial intelligence
16: Sonja Geiger & Klaus Oberauer: Towards a reconciliation of mental model theory and probabilistic theories
17: Mike Oaksford & Nick Chater: Conditional inference and constraint satisfaction: Reconciling mental models and the probabilistic approach?
18: Valerie Thompson: Towards a metacognitive dual process theory of conditional reasoning
19: Niki Verschueren & Walter Schaeken: A multi-layered dual-process approach to conditional reasoning
20: Guy Politzer & Jean-Francois Bonnefon: Two aspects of reasoning competence: A challenge for current accounts and a call for new conceptual tools
Epilogue
21: Nick Chater & Mike Oaksford: Open issues in the cognitive science of conditionals

Über Autor(innen)

Oaksford, Mike
Mike Oaksford, Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College, London, UK.

Chater, Nick
Nick Chater, Professor of Cognitive and Decision Sciences, Department of Psychology, University College London

Edited by Mike Oaksford, Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College, London, UK, and Nick Chater, Professor of Cognitive and Decision Sciences, Department of Psychology, University College London

Contributors:
Nilufa Ali, Cognition, Perception and Brain Sciences, University College London, UK
David P. O'Brien, Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, USA
Jean-François Bonnefon, CNRS - Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
Ruth M.J. Byrne, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Ireland
Nick Chater, Cognition, Perception and Brain Sciences, University College London, UK
Denise Cummins, Departments of Psychology and Philosophy, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, USA
Shira Elqayam, Applied Social Sciences, De Monfort University, UK
Jonathan St.B. T. Evans, Department of Psychology, University of Plymouth
Sonja M. Geiger, University of Western Australia, Australia
Klaus Oberauer, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Vittorio Girotto, University IUAV of Venice, Italy
Philip N. Johnson-Laird, Princeton University, USA
Gernot Kleiter, Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Austria
Robert Kowalski, Department of Computing, Imperial College London, UK
Michiel van Lambalgen, Department of Philosophy, Amsterdam University, Netherlands
In-mao Liu, National Chung-Cheng University and National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Andrea Manfrinati, Università di Padova, Italy
Henry Markovits, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Wim De Neys, University of Leuven, Belgium
Mike Oaksford, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK
David E. Over, Department of Psychology¸ University of Durham, UK
Niki Pfeifer, Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Austria
Guy Politzer, CNRS - Institut Jean-Nicod, Paris, France
Walter Schaeken, University of Leuven, Belgium
Anne Schlottmann, Developmental Science, University College London, UK
Walter Schroyens, Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, University of Ghent, Belgium
Abigail Shaw, Developmental Science, University College London, UK
Keith Stenning, Human Communication Research Centre, Edinburgh University, Scotland, UK
Valerie A. Thompson, University of Saskatchewan, Canada,
Niki Verschueren, University of Leuven, Belgium