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167The Mental Model Theory of Conditionals: A Reply to Guy Politzer (review)Topoi 28 (1): 75-80. 2009.This paper replies to Politzer’s (2007) criticisms of the mental model theory of conditionals. It argues that the theory provides a correct account of negation of conditionals, that it does not provide a truth-functional account of their meaning, though it predicts that certain interpretations of conditionals yield acceptable versions of the ‘paradoxes’ of material implication, and that it postulates three main strategies for estimating the probabilities of conditionals.
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146The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to RealityMIT Press. 2005.A leading scholar in the psychology of thinking and reasoning argues that the counterfactual imagination—the creation of "if only" alternatives to ...
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130Reasoning with deontic and counterfactual conditionalsThinking and Reasoning 9 (1). 2003.We report two new phenomena of deontic reasoning: (1) For conditionals with deontic content such as, "If the nurse cleaned up the blood then she must have worn rubber gloves", reasoners make more modus tollens inferences (from "she did not wear rubber gloves" to "she did not clean up the blood") compared to conditionals with epistemic content. (2) For conditionals in the subjunctive mood with deontic content, such as, "If the nurse had cleaned up the blood then she must have had to wear rubber g…Read more
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123The Comprehension of Counterfactual Conditionals: Evidence From Eye-Tracking in the Visual World ParadigmFrontiers in Psychology 10. 2019.
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110Semifactual ''even if'' thinkingThinking and Reasoning 8 (1). 2002.Semifactual thinking about what might have been the same, e.g., ''even if Philip had not chosen the chocolate ice-cream sundae, he would have developed an allergic reaction'' has been neglected compared to counterfactual thinking about what might have been different, e.g., ''if only Philip had not chosen the chocolate ice-cream sundae, he would not have developed an allergic reaction''. We report the first systematic comparison of the two sorts of thinking in two experiments. The first experimen…Read more
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72Counterfactual thoughts about experienced, observed, and narrated eventsThinking and Reasoning 17 (2). 2011.Four studies show that observers and readers imagine different alternatives to reality. When participants read a story about a protagonist who chose the more difficult of two tasks and failed, their counterfactual thoughts focused on the easier, unchosen task. But when they observed the performance of an individual who chose and failed the more difficult task, participants' counterfactual thoughts focused on alternative ways to solve the chosen task, as did the thoughts of individuals who acted …Read more
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72Spontaneous counterfactual thoughts and causal explanationsThinking and Reasoning 12 (2). 2006.We report two Experiments to compare counterfactual thoughts about how an outcome could have been different and causal explanations about why the outcome occurred. Experiment 1 showed that people generate counterfactual thoughts more often about controllable than uncontrollable events, whereas they generate causal explanations more often about unexpected than expected events. Counterfactual thoughts focus on specific factors, whereas causal explanations focus on both general and specific factors…Read more
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70Précis of DeductionBehavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (2): 323-333. 1993.How do people make deductions? The orthodox view in psychology is that they use formal rules of inference like those of a “natural deduction” system.Deductionargues that their logical competence depends, not on formal rules, but on mental models. They construct models of the situation described by the premises, using their linguistic knowledge and their general knowledge. They try to formulate a conclusion based on these models that maintains semantic information, that expresses it parsimoniousl…Read more
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56Conditionals: A theory of meaning, pragmatics, and inferencePsychological Review 109 (4): 646-678. 2002.The authors outline a theory of conditionals of the form If A then C and If A then possibly C. The 2 sorts of conditional have separate core meanings that refer to sets of possibilities. Knowledge, pragmatics, and semantics can modulate these meanings. Modulation can add information about temporal and other relations between antecedent and consequent. It can also prevent the construction of possibilities to yield 10 distinct sets of possibilities to which conditionals can refer. The mental repre…Read more
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53Suppressing valid inferences with conditionalsCognition 31 (1): 61-83. 1989.Three experiments are reported which show that in certain contexts subjects reject instances of the valid modus ponens and modus tollens inference form in conditional arguments. For example, when a conditional premise, such as: If she meets her friend then she will go to a play, is accompanied by a conditional containing an additional requirement: If she has enough money then she will go to a play, subjects reject the inference from the categorical premise: She meets her friend, to the conclusio…Read more
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46How people think “if only …” about reasons for actionsThinking and Reasoning 13 (4). 2007.When people think about how a situation might have turned out differently, they tend to imagine counterfactual alternatives to their actions. We report the results of three experiments which show that people imagine alternatives to actions differently when they know about a reason for the action. The first experiment ( n = 36) compared reason - action sequences to cause - effect sequences. It showed that people do not imagine alternatives to reasons in the way they imagine alternatives to cause…Read more
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46Dual processes of emotion and reason in judgments about moral dilemmasThinking and Reasoning 20 (2): 245-268. 2014.We report the results of two experiments that show that participants rely on both emotion and reason in moral judgments. Experiment 1 showed that when participants were primed to communicate feelings, they provided emotive justifications not only for personal dilemmas, e.g., pushing a man from a bridge that will result in his death but save the lives of five others, but also for impersonal dilemmas, e.g., hitting a switch on a runaway train that will result in the death of one man but save the l…Read more
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45Facts and Possibilities: A Model‐Based Theory of Sentential ReasoningCognitive Science 42 (6): 1887-1924. 2018.This article presents a fundamental advance in the theory of mental models as an explanation of reasoning about facts, possibilities, and probabilities. It postulates that the meanings of compound assertions, such as conditionals (if) and disjunctions (or), unlike those in logic, refer to conjunctions of epistemic possibilities that hold in default of information to the contrary. Various factors such as general knowledge can modulate these interpretations. New information can always override sen…Read more
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45Counterfactual and semi-factual thoughts in moral judgements about failed attempts to harmThinking and Reasoning 23 (4): 409-448. 2017.People judge that an individual who attempts to harm someone but fails should be blamed and punished more when they imagine how things could have turned out worse, compared to when they imagine how things could have turned out the same, or when they think only about what happened. This moral counterfactual amplification effect occurs when people believe the protagonist had no reason for the attempt to harm, and not when the protagonist had a reason, as Experiment 1 shows. It occurs for intention…Read more
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39Mental models and pragmaticsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (2): 284-285. 2000.Van der Henst argues that the theory of mental models lacks a pragmatic component. He fills the gap with the notion that reasoners draw the most relevant conclusions. We agree, but argue that theories need an element of “nondeterminism.” It is often impossible to predict either what will be most relevant or which particular conclusion an individual will draw.
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33Thinking About the Opposite of What Is Said: Counterfactual Conditionals and Symbolic or Alternate Simulations of NegationCognitive Science 42 (8): 2459-2501. 2018.When people understand a counterfactual such as “if the flowers had been roses, the trees would have been orange trees,” they think about the conjecture, “there were roses and orange trees,” and they also think about its opposite, the presupposed facts. We test whether people think about the opposite by representing alternates, for example, “poppies and apple trees,” or whether models can contain symbols, for example, “no roses and no orange trees.” We report the discovery of an inference‐to‐alt…Read more
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33DeductionPsychology Press. 1991.In this study on deduction, the authors argue that people reason by imagining the relevant state of affairs, ie building an internal model of it, formulating a tentative conclusion based on this model and then searching for alternative models.
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32Moral hindsight for good actions and the effects of imagined alternatives to realityCognition 178 (C): 82-91. 2018.
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32Mental models and syllogismsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (3): 543-546. 1996.We resolve the two problems that Hardman raises. The first problem arises from a misunderstanding: the crucial distinction is between one-model and multiple-model problems. The second problem illuminates a deeper principle: conclusions depend on the procedures for interpreting models. We describe an algorithm that obviates the problem and empirical work that reveals a new view of syllogistic reasoning
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28Why models rather than rules give a better account of propositional reasoning: A reply to Bonatti and to O'Brien, Braine, and YangPsychological Review 101 (4): 734-739. 1994.
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22The Suppression of Inferences From Counterfactual ConditionalsCognitive Science 44 (4). 2020.We examine two competing effects of beliefs on conditional inferences. The suppression effect occurs for conditionals, for example, “if she watered the plants they bloomed,” when beliefs about additional background conditions, for example, “if the sun shone they bloomed” decrease the frequency of inferences such as modus tollens (from “the plants did not bloom” to “therefore she did not water them”). In contrast, the counterfactual elevation effect occurs for counterfactual conditionals, for exa…Read more
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21Models, necessity, and the search for counterexamplesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (4): 775-777. 1994.
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Trinity College, DublinDistinguished Professor
Dublin, Leinster, Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Other Academic Areas |
Areas of Interest
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Other Academic Areas |