Development of conditional reasoning: Mental models and information generation

条件推理包括基于if-then前提进行演绎推理。它是高级推理的一个重要组成部分，理解它的本质和发展过程是认知心理学的一个关键问题。拟议的研究计划是一个正在进行的计划的延伸，该计划将心理模型理论（Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1999; 2002）与模型生成的明确信息处理账户（Markovits & Barrouillet, 2002）相结合。该模型的一个关键假设是，儿童和毫无准备的成年人的条件推理严重依赖于从长期记忆中获取信息的过程（Janveau-Brennan & Markovits, 1999; Markovits & Quinn, 2001），这可以与更基本的概率推理（Markovits, Lortie Forgues, & Brunet, 2010; Markovits & Thompson, 2008）区分开来。重要的是，这个模型最近被扩展到抽象推理（Markovits, 2007; Markovits & Lortie Forgues，出版中），通过将信息检索的概念推广到信息生成的概念。具体地说，我们提供的证据表明，在与事实相反的情况下，产生有关潜在替代方案的信息的能力促进了抽象推理。这种替代生成的概念提供了一个更连贯的上下文，在这个上下文中，可以理解不同抽象层次的推理能力的发展。拟议的计划将以下列方式扩展这些成果。主要的推力将集中在理解在选择产生和推理之间的关系的发展进程。6至15岁的儿童将使用实验和相关设计进行与年龄相适应的推理任务和替代生成任务。另一组研究将通过启动和错误识别任务来检验或多或少有能力的推理者使用信息检索的方式。

Conditional reasoning involves making deductive inferences based on if-then premises. It is a key component of advanced reasoning, and understanding its nature and developmental course is a key problem in cognitive psychology. The proposed program of research is an extension of an on-going program that has combined mental model theory (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1999; 2002) with an explicit information processing account of model generation (Markovits & Barrouillet, 2002). A key postulate of this model is that conditional reasoning in children, and in unprepared adults, is heavily dependent on processes involved in information retrieval from long term memory (Janveau-Brennan & Markovits, 1999; Markovits & Quinn, 2001), which can be distinguished from more basic probabilistic reasoning (Markovits, Lortie Forgues, & Brunet, 2010; Markovits & Thompson, 2008). Importantly, this model has recently been extended to abstract reasoning (Markovits, 2007; Markovits & Lortie Forgues, in press) by generalizing the notion of information retrieval to that of information generation. Specifically, we have provided evidence that abstract reasoning is facilitated by the ability to generate information about potential alternatives within a contrary-to-fact context. This notion of alternatives generation provides a more coherent context within which the development of reasoning competencies of varying levels of abstraction can be understood. The proposed program will extend these results in the following ways. The major thrust will focus on understanding the developmental progression in the relation between alternatives generation and reasoning. Children at ages between 6 and 15 will be given age-appropriate reasoning tasks, and alternatives generation tasks, using both an experimental and correlational design. Another set of studies will examine the way that information retrieval is used by more or less competent reasoners by using priming and false recognition tasks.