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42Nonmonotonicity and human probabilistic reasoningIn Niki Pfeifer & G. D. Kleiter (eds.), Proceedings of the 6 T H Workshop on Uncertainty Processing, . pp. 221--234. 2003.Nonmonotonic logics allow—contrary to classical (monotone) logics— for withdrawing conclusions in the light of new evidence. Nonmonotonic reasoning is often claimed to mimic human common sense reasoning. Only a few studies, though, have investigated this claim empirically. system p is a central, broadly accepted nonmonotonic reasoning system that proposes basic rationality postulates. We previously investigated empirically a probabilistic interpretation of three selected rules of system p. We fo…Read more
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37Experiments on nonmonotonic reasoning. The coherence of human probability judgmentsIn H. Leitgeb & G. Schurz (eds.), Pre-Proceedings of the 1 s T Salzburg Workshop on Paradigms of Cognition, . 2002.Nonmonotonic reasoning is often claimed to mimic human common sense reasoning. Only a few studies, though, investigated this claim empirically. In the present paper four psychological experiments are reported, that investigate three rules of system p, namely the and, the left logical equivalence, and the or rule. The actual inferences of the subjects are compared with the coherent normative upper and lower probability bounds derived from a non-infinitesimal probability semantics of system p. We …Read more
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125How people interpret an uncertain IfIn T. Kroupa & J. Vejnarova (eds.), Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Uncertainty Processing, . pp. 80-91. 2009.Conditionals are central to inference. Before people can draw inferences about a natural language conditional, they must interpret its meaning. We investigated interpretation of uncertain conditionals using a probabilistic truth table task, focussing on (i) conditional event, (ii) material conditional, and (iii) conjunction interpretations. The order of object (shape) and feature (color) in each conditional's antecedent and consequent was varied between participants. The conditional event was th…Read more
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43A system of intermediate quantifiers (“Most S are P”, “m/n S are P”) is proposed for evaluating the rationality of human syllogistic reasoning. Some relations between intermediate quantifiers and probabilistic interpretations are discussed. The paper concludes by the generalization of the atmosphere, matching and conversion hypothesis to syllogisms with intermediate quantifiers. Since our experiments are currently still running, most of the paper is theoretical and intended to stimulate psycholog…Read more
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41Is human reasoning about nonmonotonic conditionals probabilistically coherent?In Niki Pfeifer & G. D. Kleiter (eds.), Proceedings of the 7 T H Workshop on Uncertainty Processing, . pp. 138--150. 2006.Nonmonotonic conditionals (A |∼ B) are formalizations of common sense expressions of the form “if A, normally B”. The nonmonotonic conditional is interpreted by a “high” coherent conditional probability, P(B|A) > .5. Two important properties are closely related to the nonmonotonic conditional: First, A |∼ B allows for exceptions. Second, the rules of the nonmonotonic system p guiding A |∼ B allow for withdrawing conclusions in the light of new premises. This study reports a series of three exper…Read more
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34Contemporary syllogistics: Comparative and quantitative syllogismsIn Günther Kreuzbauer & Georg Dorn (eds.), Argumentation in Theorie Und Praxis: Philosophie Und Didaktik des Argumentierens, Lit. pp. 57--71. 2006.Traditionally, syllogisms are arguments with two premises and one conclusion which are constructed by propositions of the form “All… are…” and “At least one… is…” and their respective negated versions. Unfortunately, the practical use of traditional syllogisms is quite restricted. On the one hand, the “All…” propositions are too strict, since a single counterexample suffices for falsification. On the other hand, the “At least one …” propositions are too weak, since a single example suffices for …Read more
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132The new psychology of reasoning: A mental probability logical perspectiveThinking and Reasoning 19 (3-4): 329-345. 2013.No abstract
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31The conditional in mental probability logicIn Mike Oaksford & Nick Chater (eds.), Cognition and Conditionals: Probability and Logic in Human Thought, Oxford University Press. pp. 153--173. 2010.The present chapter describes a probabilistic framework of human reasoning. It is based on probability logic. While there are several approaches to probability logic, we adopt the coherence based approach.
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19Nonmonotonic conditionals (A |∼ B) are formalizations of common sense expressions of the form “if A, normally B”. The nonmonotonic conditional is interpreted by a “high” coherent conditional probability, P(B|A) > .5. Two important properties are closely related to the nonmonotonic conditional: First, A |∼ B allows for exceptions. Second, the rules of the nonmonotonic system p guiding A |∼ B allow for withdrawing conclusions in the light of new premises. This study reports a series of three exper…Read more
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116Framing human inference by coherence based probability logicJournal of Applied Logic 7 (2): 206--217. 2009.We take coherence based probability logic as the basic reference theory to model human deductive reasoning. The conditional and probabilistic argument forms are explored. We give a brief overview of recent developments of combining logic and probability in psychology. A study on conditional inferences illustrates our approach. First steps towards a process model of conditional inferences conclude the paper.