Theories of reasoning and the representational level: A reply to Oaksford

Oaksford (2001) considers that the findings of Espino, Santamaría, and García Madruga (2000a) could be explained by the Probability Heuristics Model (PHM) proposed by Chater and Oaksford (1999). He specifically voices three objections, the two main ones being based on the fact that PHM is not a theory about syllogism representation. If this is the case, we consider that PHM cannot explain our data, because most of them were registered before the participants evaluated the conclusion. We argue that only a theory at the representational level can property explain these data.