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（如演绎逻辑的句法规则）来解决问题。Nisbett、Cheng和Holyoak先前研究的证据表明，人们通常不会使用这些规则进行推理；相反，他们使用他们所谓的语用推理模式，这是根据目标和适用条件组织的抽象规则集群。到目前为止，研究的语用模式包括监管模式，如权限和义务，以及大数定律的定性版本。教授这种抽象的语用图式可以在训练后立即提高推理能力，也可以在一两个星期后提高推理能力，而教授正式规则即使在训练后也不能提高推理能力（或者，在其他研究中，可以立即提高推理能力，但这种提高很快就会消失）。一个合理的解释是，语用规则是根据它们应用的条件组织起来的，因此，一旦学会了，就可以应用和实践。相比之下，形式规则没有规定适用条件，因此难以适用。第一组实验将把语用图式方法扩展到对因果关系证据的评价。第一个实验将测试人们在评估因果关系时是否使用实用规则而不是形式规则。它还将调查关于因果关系的常见谬论的原因。第二个实验将测量当前心理学和化学因果推理研究生培训的有效性。心理学专业的学生比化学专业的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可以像语用假设所预测的那样，通过抽象手段有效地教授。第二组实验将扩展形式规则和语用规则的训练效果持续时间的研究。实用训练将包括关于义务和因果关系的规则。第三组实验将检验是规则的自然性还是实用性导致了有效的训练。最后一项研究将评估一门基于语用规则的推理新课程。这项研究将导致推理指导的发展比形式逻辑训练更有效。新的指导方针以理论为基础，将比目前在法律、医学和研究生院流行的以案例为基础的方法更系统、更普遍。课程内容将包括社会规则推理、基于大数定律的变异性解释，以及在接受或拒绝科学假设时评估证据。

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.