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- Reasoning about intentions : Counterexamples to reasons for actionsPublication . Juhos, Csongor; Quelhas, Ana Cristina; Byrne, Ruth M. J.Four experiments tested the idea that people distinguish between biconditional, conditional, and enabling intention conditionals by thinking about counterexamples. The experiments examined intention conditionals that contain different types of reasons for actions, such as beliefs, goals, obligations, and social norms, based on a corpus of 48 intention conditionals established through an extensive materials test (n 136). Experiment 1 (n 19) showed that retrieved alternative reasons suppress the affirmation of the consequent and denial of the antecedent inferences from conditional intentions, whereas retrieved disabling reasons suppress the modus ponens and modus tollens inferences from enabling intentions. Experiment 2 (n 61) showed that the suppression effects also occur for explicitly provided alternatives and disablers, for a large corpus of 80 intention conditionals. Experiment 3 (n 60) showed that the suppression effects also occur for unfamiliar content, for which participants cannot rely on prior knowledge or beliefs about probabilities. Experiment 4 (n 26) showed that participants retrieve alternatives and disablers readily for intentions just as they do for causal conditionals. The implications of the results for alternative accounts based on possibilities and probabilities are discussed.
- The modulation of conditional assertions and its effects on reasoningPublication . Quelhas, Ana Cristina; Johnson-Laird, Philip N.; Juhos, CsongorThe theory of mental models postulates that conditionals of the sort, if A then C, have a “core” meaning referring to three possibilities: A and C, not-A and C, and not-A and not-C. The meaning of a conditional’s clauses and general knowledge can modulate this meaning, blocking certain possibilities or adding relations between the clauses. Four experiments investigated such interpretations in factual and deontic domains. In Experiment 1, the participants constructed instances of what was possible and what was impossible according to various conditionals. The results corroborated the general predictions of the model theory and also the occurrence of modulation. The resulting interpretations governed the conclusions that participants accepted in Experiment 2, which also yielded the predicted effects of a time limit on responding. In Experiment 3, the participants drew the predicted conclusions for themselves. In Experiment 4, modulation led to predicted temporal relations between A and C. We relate these results to current theories of conditionals.