Psychology

Logical reasoning, world knowledge, and mental imagery: Interconnections in cognitive processes

Document Type

Article

Abstract

To better understand the role of problem content in verbal reasoning, the effect of two aspects of problem representation on conditional reasoning was examined. Specifically, this study focused on the effect of availability of knowledge schemata and mental imagery on recognition of indeterminacy. Four groups of 20 adults solved syllogisms that varied in imagery value and in tendency to access knowledge schemata (assessed by ratings of the relatedness of antecedent and consequent clauses of premises). When problems both were high in imagery value and had related clauses, performance was significantly better on indeterminate syllogisms. Access to schemata may permit elaborative processing and the generation of counterexamples to invalid inferences; imagery may support representation of problems and generation of elaborative information in memory. © 1986 Psychonomic Society, Inc.

Publication Title

Memory & Cognition

Publication Date

1986

Volume

14

Issue

4

First Page

299

Last Page

307

ISSN

0090-502X

DOI

10.3758/BF03202507

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