The Shallow Processing of Logical Negation

Abstract

Abstract:The aim of this study is to introduce a novel reasoning phenomenon concerned with the shallow processing of negation in the context of sentential reasoning. By analogy to other psychological explanations that account for superficial responses with conditionals, this study proposes an account for biconditionals derived from a recent theory of negation. This theory predicts that the psychological use of negation returns small scope products. This would happen because the human mind tends to avoid the working memory overload by simplifying its reasoning processes. A within-subjects experimental design was applied to test this conjecture. Results were consistent with such small scope negation prediction. The obtained evidence extends the observation of shallow reasoning processes to the negation of conjunctions and disjunctions that take the form of biconditionals. The results of this study support a mental models approach to account for the psychology of logical negation.

Chronometrical Evidence Supports the Model Theory of Negation

“…The evidence supported such theory. Response type analysis replicated previous findings (Khemlani et al, 2012(Khemlani et al, , 2014Macbeth, Razumiejczyk, Crivello, et al, 2013;Macbeth et al, 2014;Macbeth et al, 2015) and response time analysis contributed novel findings. Taken together, these results suggest that the processing of compound negation can be understood as a complex set of psychological phenomena.…”

“…To achieve a neutral and straightforward comparison between predictions derived from the MMT and alternative theories, we applied a sentence-equivalence task that was used in previous studies (Macbeth, Razumiejczyk, Crivello, et al, 2013;Macbeth et al, 2014;Macbeth et al, 2015). This task required to find a logical equivalence for a given compound negation.…”

Effect of personality on compound reasoning

“…It appears in all human languages, although it does not have the same grammar structure in all of them (Khemlani et al, 2012). Its importance is evidenced by the attention received from various disciplines, especially in the study of propositional reasoning (Macbeth et al, 2013;Macbeth, Razumiejczyk, Crivello, Fioramonti, & Pereyra-Girardi, 2015;Orenes et al, 2016).…”

“…According to Khemlani et al (2012), while the goal of a Linguistic Theory of Negation is to explain its syntactic, semantic and pragmatic elements, the purpose of a Psychological Theory is to explain how such grammar, meaning, and knowledge are understood by people and how people represent them mentally. And here lies the central goal of the proposal: to decipher the meaning, representation, and use granted by people to negation (Khemlani et al, 2012(Khemlani et al, , 2014Macbeth et al, 2013Macbeth et al, , 2017a. Out of all these elements, meaning is the one which acquires fundamental value, due to its effect on negation (Khemlani et al, 2012(Khemlani et al, , 2014.…”

“…While logicist theories emphasize the formal and syntactic aspects of thought, the MMT focuses on the semantic and contextual components (Khemlani, 2018;Macbeth, Razumiejczyk, Crivello, Fioramonti, & Pereyra-Girardi, 2013). The general hypothesis is that people reason by developing mental models of the world (Khemlani, Byrne, & Johnson-Laird, 2018;Johnson-Laird & Ragni, 2019).…”