Pragmatic factors in conditional reasoning with narrative texts

Abstract

In this study the role of pragmatic knowledge in conditional reasoning was investigated (Cheng & Holyoak, 1985; Holyoak & Cheng, 1995). We tried to precisely determine the importance of the variable which we refer to as “the probability of empirical frequency" (Valiña & cols. 1992a, b; Valiña & cols. 1996a, b) This refers to the frequency with which the expressed relation between the antecedent and the consequent in conditional sentences occurs in the real world. If, as is proposed by the Theory of Mental Models (Johnson-Laird, 1983; Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991), people elaborate representations of the real world, it would be expected that reasoning with conditional sentences in which "empirical possibilities" are expressed will be different from the reasoning involved with statements which imply "empirical neccessities" (Byrne & Johnson-Laird, 1992). The results are not consistent with theories based on formal rules of inference.