The Micro-Category account of analogy

Here, we investigate how activation of mental representations of categories during analogical reasoning influences subsequent cognitive processing. Specifically, we present and test the central predictions of the "Micro-Category" account of analogy. This account emphasizes the role of categories in aligning terms for analogical mapping. In a semantic priming paradigm, a four-word analogy task was compared to two other four-word tasks. Stimuli were identical in all tasks; only the instructions given to participants differed. Participants were instructed to identify analogy relations, category relations, or conventionalized semantic relations in the four-word sets. After each four-word set, a single target word appeared and participants named this word aloud. Target words that referred to category relations in the preceding four-word sets were primed as strongly when participants identified analogies as when participants identified categories, suggesting that activation of category concepts plays an important role in analogical thinking. In addition, priming of category-referent words in the analogy and category tasks was significantly greater than priming of these words when participants identified conventionalized semantic relations. Since identical stimuli were used in all conditions, this finding indicates that it is the activation of category relations, distinct from any effect of basic semantic association, that causes analogical reasoning to prime category-referent words. We delineate how the "Micro-Category" account of analogy predicts these phenomena and unifies findings from diverse areas of research concerning analogical reasoning.     

Inductive reasoning about causally transmitted properties

Different intuitive theories constrain and guide inferences in different contexts. Formalizing simple intuitive theories as probabilistic processes operating over structured representations, we present a new computational model of category-based induction about causally transmitted properties. A first experiment demonstrates undergraduates’ context-sensitive use of taxonomic and food web knowledge to guide reasoning about causal transmission and shows good qualitative agreement between model predictions and human inferences. A second experiment demonstrates strong quantitative and qualitative fits to inferences about a more complex artificial food web. A third experiment investigates human reasoning about complex novel food webs where species have known taxonomic relations. Results demonstrate a double-dissociation between the predictions of our causal model and a related taxonomic model [Kemp, C., & Tenenbaum, J. B. (2003). Learning domain structures. In Proceedings of the 25th annual conference of the cognitive science society]: the causal model predicts human inferences about diseases but not genes, while the taxonomic model predicts human inferences about genes but not diseases. We contrast our framework with previous models of category-based induction and previous formal instantiations of intuitive theories, and outline challenges in developing a complete model of context-sensitive reasoning.     

Logic and Reasoning: do the facts matter?

Modern logic is undergoing a cognitive turn, side-stepping Frege’s ‘antipsychologism’. Collaborations between logicians and colleagues in more empirical fields are growing, especially in research on reasoning and information update by intelligent agents. We place this border-crossing research in the context of long-standing contacts between logic and empirical facts, since pure normativity has never been a plausible stance. We also discuss what the fall of Frege’s Wall means for a new agenda of logic as a theory of rational agency, and what might then be a viable understanding of ‘psychologism’ as a friend rather than an enemy of logical theory. Edited by Hannes Leitgeb     

Fostering Taiwanese preschoolers’ understanding of the addition–subtraction inverse principle

The present research involved gauging preschoolers’ learning potential for a key arithmetic concept, the addition–subtraction inverse principle (e.g., 2 + 1 − 1 = 2). Sixty 4- and 5-year-old Taiwanese children from two public preschools serving low- and middle-income families participated in the training experiment. Half were randomly assigned to an experimental group; half, to a control condition. Participants were tested for an understanding of inversion before and after intervention. One-third of the 5 year olds from both groups performed at the marginally or reliably successful levels before the intervention, and three quarters of them did so in the posttest. Only one of the 4 year olds was marginally successful before the intervention and 4 year olds in the experimental group somewhat benefited from the intervention. Significant social class effect were evident.     

直言推理系统

本文构造了直言推理的一个系统MA,内容包括直接推理和三段论,但未考虑单称命题。此系统实际上是名辞逻辑系统MZ的子系统,精确地说是关于类名及其否定和由它们形成的本辞的系统。文中证明了系统MA的可靠性和完全性,并提出了它的自然推理系统。     

Commentary: Are There Good Reasons to Adopt Dynamic Systems Approaches for Explaining Deductive Reasoning?

The focus of this commentary is twofold. First, I examine Faiciuc’s attempts to counter symbolic computationalism as a major theoretical framework for the study of deductive reasoning. Second, I wish to see how far the author goes in her defense of Dynamic Systems Approaches (DSAs) as a more promising framework for explaining logical reasoning. When reading her work, I posed two versions of the same for/against question to myself: How strong is the case against symbolic computationalism? And, on the basis of the author’s argumentation, would one feel justified in adopting DSAs instead? I examine each question in turn, and come to similar conclusions. The article by Faiciuc tackles issues of relevance to any serious effort toward reflecting on the two perspectives being compared. Unfortunately, however, references to studies supporting her claims are rather thin. A better-informed answer to the question raised in the title of the article is still to be given.     

Everyday Life Reasoning, Possible Worlds and Cultural Processes

Discussing Faiciuc’s paper, I first tackle the problem of fallacies in deductive reasoning showing how, in a possible world theory, non correct forms of reasoning can be useful strategies for discovery, providing these strategies remain at a hypothesis level. Secondly, everyday reasoning and its specificity in comparison to logical-normative one are analyzed. This topic stresses the notion of interpretation and, in this context, the role of the community and of cultural canons shared by the subject. From this point of view, reasoning does not occur, only, in the brain of a person but in everyday exchanges occurring between individuals and the history of their community.

A Complete Axiom System for Polygonal Mereotopology of the Real Plane

This paper presents a calculus for mereotopological reasoning in which two-dimensional spatial regions are treated as primitive entities. A first order predicate language with a distinguished unary predicate c(x), function-symbols , · and – and constants 0 and 1 is defined. An interpretation for is provided in which polygonal open subsets of the real plane serve as elements of the domain. Under this interpretation the predicate c(x) is read as region x is connected and the function-symbols and constants are given their meaning in terms of a Boolean algebra of polygons. We give an alternative interpretation based on the real closed plane which turns out to be isomorphic to A set of axioms and a rule of inference are introduced. We prove the soundness and completeness of the calculus with respect to the given interpretation.     

Learning by Arguing About Evidence and Explanations

Collaborative learning with cases characteristically involves discussing and developing shared explanations. We investigated the argumentation scheme which learners use in constructing shared explanations over evidence. We observed medical students attempting to explain how a judge had arrived at his verdict in a case of medical negligence. The students were learning within a virtual learning environment and their communication was computer mediated. We identify the dialogue type that these learners construct and show that their argumentation conforms with an abductive form of argumentation scheme (‘inference to the best explanation’). We also assessed the students’ learning and propose that it is related to particular features of this argumentation scheme.     

Superior fluid intelligence in children with Asperger's disorder

Asperger's disorder is one of autistic spectrum disorders; sharing clinical features with autism, but without developmental delay in language acquisition. There have been some studies of intellectual functioning in autism so far, but very few in Asperger's disorder. In the present study, we investigated abstract reasoning ability, whose form of intelligence has been labeled fluid intelligence in the theory of Cattell [Cattell, R. B. (1963). Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence: A critical experiment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 54, 1-22.], in children with Asperger's disorder. A test of fluid intelligence, the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices Test, was administered to 17 children with Asperger's disorder and 17 age-, gender-, and FIQ-matched normal children. The results showed that children with Asperger's disorder outperformed on the test of fluid reasoning than typically developing children. We suggest that individuals with Asperger's disorder have higher fluid reasoning ability than normal individuals, highlighting superior fluid intelligence.