Inference, Instruction, and Pragmatic Reasoning Schemes

经典的推理观点认为，人们通过应用形式推理规则来解决问题，例如演绎逻辑的句法规则。基于尼斯贝特、程和霍利奥克之前工作的证据表明，人们通常不使用这样的规则进行推理；相反，他们使用他们所说的语用推理图式，这是根据适用目标和条件组织的抽象规则的集群。到目前为止，研究的语用图式包括管制图式，如许可和义务，以及大数定律的定性版本。无论是在训练后立即还是在延迟一两周之后，教授这种抽象的语用图式都会提高推理能力，而教授形式规则并没有提高推理能力，甚至在训练之后也是如此(或者，在其他研究中，立即提高了推理能力，但这种提高很快就消失了)。一种合理的解释是，语用规则是根据它们适用的条件来组织的，因此一旦学习就可以应用和实践。相比之下，正式规则没有具体说明适用条件，因此很难适用。第一组实验将把语用图式方法扩展到因果关系证据的评估。第一个实验将测试人们在评估因果关系时是否使用语用规则，而不是正式规则。它还将调查关于因果关系的常见谬误的原因。第二个实验将衡量当前心理学和化学领域的因果推理研究生培训的有效性。心理学学生比化学学生接触到更广泛的因果关系，因此应该更准确地根据所涉及的因果关系类型对事件进行分类。第三个实验将测试因果推理是否能像语用假说所预测的那样，通过抽象的方式有效地进行教学。第二组实验将扩展对正式规则和语用规则的训练效果的持续时间的研究。务实培训将包括关于义务和因果关系的规则。第三组实验将检验规则的自然性或实用性是导致有效培训的原因。最后一项研究将评估一门新的基于语用规则的推理课程。这项研究将导致开发出比形式逻辑培训更有效的推理指导。新的指导是以理论为基础的，将比目前在法律、医学和研究生院流行的基于案例的方法更系统、更普遍。课程内容包括关于社会规则的推理、基于大数定律的可变性解释，以及在接受或拒绝科学假设时对证据的评估。

The classical view of reasoning holds that people solve problems by applying formal inferential rules such as the syntactic rules of deductive logic. Evidence based on previous work by Nisbett, Cheng, and Holyoak shows that people typically do not reason using such rules; instead, they use what they term pragmatic reasoning schemas, which are clusters of abstract rules organized according to goals and conditions of applicability. The pragmatic schemas studied so far include regulation schemas, such as permissions and obligations, and a qualitative version of the law of large numbers. Teaching such abstract pragmatic schemas improved reasoning, both immediately following training and after a delay of a week or two, whereas teaching formal rules did not improve reasoning, even immediately following training (or, in other studies, improved reasoning immediately, but the improvement decayed rapidly). One plausible explanation is that pragmatic rules are organized according to the conditions under which they apply, and therefore can be applied and practiced once they are learned. In contrast, formal rules do not specify conditions of applicability and therefore are difficult to apply. The first set of experiments will extend the pragmatic schema approach to the evaluation of evidence on cause-and-effect relations. The first experiment will test whether people use pragmatic rather than formal rules in evaluating causal relations. It will also investigate the reasons for common fallacies about causal relations. The second experiment will measure the effectiveness of current graduate training on causal reasoning in psychology and chemistry. Psychology students are exposed to a wider range of causal relations than chemistry students, and therefore should be more accurate in classifying events according to the type of causal relation involved. The third experiment will test whether causal reasoning can be taught effectively by abstract means, as predicted by the pragmatic hypothesis. The second set of experiments will extend the study of the duration of training effects of formal and pragmatic rules. Pragmatic training will include rules on obligations and causal relations. The third set of experiments will examine whether it is the naturalness or the pragmatic nature of the rules that lead to effective training. The last study will evaluate a new course on reasoning based on pragmatic rules. This research will lead to the development of instructions on reasoning more effective than training in formal logic. The new instructions, being theoretically based, will be more systematic as well as more general than the case-based methodnow prevalent in law, medical, and graduate schools. The instructions will cover reasoning on social regulations, explanation of variability based on the law of large numbers, and the evaluation of evidence in accepting or rejecting scientific hypotheses.