Keywords
reasoning
conditional reasoning
pragmatic reasoning
mental models
context
narrative texts
How to Cite
Abstract
The purpose of this investigation is to explore the importance of thematic and pragmatic factors in conditional inference tasks, included in narrative texts, which described plausible everyday situations. Content type (causal versus promise/threat), text coherence (coherent versus non-coherent), the probability of empiric occurrence in conditional statements (deterministic, probabilistic and without specific relation), and the type of conditional rule (Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens, Affirmation of the Consequent and Denial of the Antecedent) were manipulated. Using an answer-selection paradigm, as well as choosing the conclusion, the subjects indicated the level of certainty with which they made their selection. The results showed that: (a) The subjects who reasoned with coherent texts obtained better results and declared feeling more certain of their answers than those who reasoned with incoherent texts; (b) when reasoning is carried out with deterministic statements, which always occur in the real world, the highest number of correct answers, as well as the highest level of certainty in the choice of answer, is achieved. (c) The content type did not register any principal effects, but significant interactive effects of this variable were obtained with text coherence. The results obtained were discussed within the framework of the principal current theoretical approaches to conditional reasoning.This journal is registered under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. Thus, this work may be reproduced, distributed, and publicly shared in digital format, as long as the names of the authors and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana are acknowledged. Others are allowed to quote, adapt, transform, auto-archive, republish, and create based on this material, for any purpose (even commercial ones), provided the authorship is duly acknowledged, a link to the original work is provided, and it is specified if changes have been made. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana does not hold the rights of published works and the authors are solely responsible for the contents of their works; they keep the moral, intellectual, privacy, and publicity rights. Approving the intervention of the work (review, copy-editing, translation, layout) and the following outreach, are granted through an use license and not through an assignment of rights. This means the journal and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana cannot be held responsible for any ethical malpractice by the authors. As a consequence of the protection granted by the use license, the journal is not required to publish recantations or modify information already published, unless the errata stems from the editorial management process. Publishing contents in this journal does not generate royalties for contributors.