Setting the parameters of logical form:
data from the psychology of reasoning
Keith Stenning
University of Edinburgh, Human Communication Research Centre
Montag, 12.01.2004, 16 Uhr c.t., Hörsaal 9
Laboratory reasoning tasks are best regarded as examples of
communication in vacuo -- without the interpretative pressures of
the more normal rich contexts of conversation. Recent work has
reconstrued observations in Wason's selection task and Byrne's
suppression task as invoking chiefly interpretative processes. The
subject has to set parameters of a logical language in order to arrive
at a fully formed interpretation of the task and
materials. Particularly in the selection task, conflicts in the
information supplied mean that the subject struggles to find a
consistent interpretation, and responses can only be understood in
terms of this struggle. The logical form finally assigned to a
sentence can differ radically from typical assignments in
isolation. This talk illustrates these points and asks what are their
implications for theories of language processing at 'more standard
temperature and pressure'.
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