Dual-source Assumption Of Conditional Reasoning And Experimental Research

This study includes three experiments, investigates the role of the subject's prior knowledge and logical rules in conditional inference. A dual-source hypothesis of conditional inference is proposed. According to the hypothesis, during the process of reasoning, prior knowledge and logical rules influence people's inference, both of them can influence people's inference individually, but also can interact together to affect our inference. In experiment 1, we use two-factors design (one independent variable is the conditional probability, the other is the inference form), study the influence of reasoner's priori knowledge on reasoning process in the absence of logic rules. In experiment 2, we use three-factors design (one independent variable is the conditional probability, the other two independent variables are the inference form and logical rules), study the influence of logical rules on reasoning process in the condition of general logical rules and emphasize logical rules, compared to the condition of no logical rules, and further tests the influence of reasoner's priori knowledge on reasoning process. In experiment 3, we use three-factors design (one independent variable is the context, the other two independent variables are the inference form and logical rules), study the influence of reasoner's priori knowledge and logical rules on reasoning process in the classical negations paradigm. The results show that:(1)In the absence of logical rules, reasoner's priori knowledge main influence reasoning process. Mainly in:the scores of the four conditional probability in the same inference form were significantly different.(2)In the condition of general logical rules and emphasize logical rules, both reasoner's priori knowledge and logical rules inference the reasoning process. The inference of reasoner's priori knowledge mainly in:the scores of the four conditional probability in the same inference form were significantly different, whether in general logical rules condition or emphasize logical rules condition. The inference of logical rules mainly in:in general logical rules condition, the scores of different conditional probability and different inference form were higher than no logical rules condition. In emphasize logical rules condition, the scores were higher than no logical rules condition and general logical rules condition.(3)In the classical negations paradigm conditional inference, both reasoner's priori knowledge and logical rules also inference the reasoning process. The inference of reasoner's priori knowledge mainly in:the scores of different context in the same logical rules were significantly different. The inference of logical rules mainly in:the scores of different logical rules in the same inference form were significantly different.(4)When people perform reasoning tasks, conditional probability, different inference forms and the interaction between them were all significantly different; conditional probability, different inference forms and different logical rules were all significantly different, further, the interaction between two of them and the interaction between the three were all significantly different; different context, different inference forms and different logical rules were all significantly different, further, the interaction between two of them and the interaction between the three were all significantly different.(5)The results support the dual-source hypothesis.