Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Conditionals and inferential connections : a hypothetical inferential theory

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Douven, Igor, Elqayam, Shira, Singmann, Henrik and van Wijnbergen-Huitink, Janneke (2018) Conditionals and inferential connections : a hypothetical inferential theory. Cognitive Psychology, 101 . pp. 50-81. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2017.09.002 ISSN 0010-0285.

[img]
Preview
PDF
WRAP-conditionals-inferential-connections-theory-Singmann-2018.pdf - Published Version - Requires a PDF viewer.
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 4.0.

Download (10Mb) | Preview
[img] PDF
Douven_Elqayam_Singmann_Wijnbergen-Huitink-HIT_in_press.pdf - Accepted Version
Embargoed item. Restricted access to Repository staff only - Requires a PDF viewer.

Download (4021Kb)
[img] PDF
Douven_Elqayam_Singmann_Wijnbergen-Huitink-HIT_in_press.pdf - Accepted Version
Embargoed item. Restricted access to Repository staff only - Requires a PDF viewer.

Download (4021Kb)
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2017.09.002

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

Intuition suggests that for a conditional to be evaluated as true, there must be some kind of connection between its component clauses. In this paper, we formulate and test a new psychological theory to account for this intuition. We combined previous semantic and psychological theorizing to propose that the key to the intuition is a relevance-driven, satisficing-bounded inferential connection between antecedent and consequent. To test our theory, we created a novel experimental paradigm in which participants were presented with a soritical series of objects, notably colored patches (Experiments 1 and 4) and spheres (Experiment 2), or both (Experiment 3), and were asked to evaluate related conditionals embodying non-causal inferential connections (such as “If patch number 5 is blue, then so is patch number 4”). All four experiments displayed a unique response pattern, in which (largely determinate) responses were sensitive to parameters determining inference strength, as well as to consequent position in the series, in a way analogous to belief bias. Experiment 3 showed that this guaranteed relevance can be suppressed, with participants reverting to the defective conditional. Experiment 4 showed that this pattern can be partly explained by a measure of inference strength. This pattern supports our theory’s “principle of relevant inference” and “principle of bounded inference,” highlighting the dual processing characteristics of the inferential connection.

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions: Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Cognitive psychology
Journal or Publication Title: Cognitive Psychology
Publisher: Elsevier
ISSN: 0010-0285
Official Date: March 2018
Dates:
DateEvent
March 2018Published
9 January 2018Available
25 September 2017Accepted
Volume: 101
Page Range: pp. 50-81
DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2017.09.002
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Open Access (Creative Commons)
Date of first compliant deposit: 2 December 2018
Date of first compliant Open Access: 3 December 2018
Open Access Version:
  • https://osf.io/3uajq/

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics

twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us