ABSTRACTStudies examining the interpretation that is given to if–then statementstypically use what are referred to as basic conditionals, which give contextless relations between two unrelated concrete terms. However, there is some evidence that basic conditionals require a more abstract form of representation. In order to examine this, we presented participants with truth-table tasks involving either basic conditionals or conditionals referring to imaginary categories, and standard conditional inference tasks with abstract and familiar premises. As expected, fewer typical defective conditional interpretations were (...) given to basic conditionals. In addition, partial correlations showed a unique relationship between the interpretation of basic conditionals and abstract inferential reasoning. Results suggest that people process basic conditionals as a form of abstract reasoning, and that the interpretation of conditionals... (shrink)

During the last decades, the psychology of reasoning has identified experimentally many fallacies committed by spontaneous reasoners. Given these experimental results, some theories have been developed about this phenomenon, mainly algorithmic theories. This paper develops instead a computational modelling of these current fallacies which appear as simplifications in the treatment of information that do not respect the formal rules of classical propositional logic. These fallacies are explained as crushes in the Klein group structure and so, in squares of opposition. These (...) crushes are an effect of not to take into account the dual of the binary operator at work in the major premise of the inference. This analysis allows predictions on fallacies not identified before, which are fallacies produced when reasoning with incompatibilities. The paper concludes with consequences of the analysis on pedagogical strategies for the teaching of logic. (shrink)