The function and potential importance of statistical tests in examining and evaluating substantive and psychological hypotheses is discussed. Psychological hypotheses are sharply distinguished from statistical hypotheses. Decisions on statistical hypotheses must be separated from decisions on psychological hypotheses. Some differences between both kinds of hypotheses are addressed, and the ques...

Reasoning with conditionals involving causal content is known to be affected by retrieval of alternative and disabling conditions. Recent evidence indicates that besides the number of stored conditions, the relative strength of association of the alternative conditions with the consequent term is another important factor that affects the retrieval process. In this study we examined the effect o...

Using Generalized Modus Ponens reasoning, we examine the values of inferred conclusion when the premise of the rule and the observed fact have a partial overlapping. We work with fuzzy if-then rules with a single input single output and the t-norm t(x, y) = max((1+λ)(x+y−1)−λxy, 0), λ ≥ −1, for composition operation. This t-norm is important to use because for λ = −1 and λ = 0 it gives the very...

The four dominant theories of reasoning from conditionals are translated into formal models: The theory of mental models (Johnson-Laird, P. N., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2002). Conditionals: a theory of meaning, pragmatics, and inference. Psychological Review, 109, 646-678), the suppositional theory (Evans, J. S. B. T., & Over, D. E. (2004). If. Oxford: Oxford University Press), a dual-process variant...

Using generalized modus ponens reasoning, we examine the values of the inferred conclusion using the Fodor’s implication in order to interpret a fuzzy if-then rule with a single input single output and the T-norms t1(x, y) = min(x, y), t2(x, y) = xy and t3(x, y) = max(0, x + y − 1) for composition operation. These are the very used T-norms in generalized modus ponens reasoning.

It is shown how the schema of equivalence can be used to obtain short proofs of tautologies A, where the depth of proofs is linear in the number of variables in A. Eq (A, B, C arbitrary formulas) is the propositional pendant of the schema of identity. It can be argued that, apart form the usual propositional tautologies and inference schemas which are given as axiomatizations of propositional l...

This paper begins with a review of the literature on plausible reasoning with deductive arguments containing a conditional premise. There is concurring evidence that people presented with valid conditional arguments such as Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens generally do not endorse the conclusion, but rather find it uncertain, in case (1) the plausibility of the major conditional premise is debata...

The authors investigated the relationship between reasoners' understanding of subjunctive conditionals (e.g., if p had happened, then q would have happened) and the inferences they were prepared to endorse. Reasoners who made a counterfactual interpretation of subjunctive statements (i.e., they judged the statement to imply that p and q did not happen) endorsed different inferences than those w...

I argue against group agent realism, or the view that groups have irreducible mental states. If agents states, as realists assume, then best realist explanation of corporate features only basic states with at most one motivational function each. But does not feature So lack How so? defend conditional an argument from disagreement. On cognitivist approaches to desire, desires both motivate and r...