Is Inhibitory Control Related to Conflict in Reasoning: A Preliminary Study

The purpose of this study was to test a belief-bias effect on reasoning in relation to inhibitory control functions and whether inhibition would be activated on conflict syllogisms. A total of 85 university students (78 % women, Mage = 20. 51, SD = 2. 90) participated in the study. We measured three types of inhibition and used the Brown-Peterson task and the Cued Recall task to measure proactive interference resistance, the Eriksen flanker letters and arrows task to measure distractor interference control, and the Spatial and Numerical Stroop task to measure prepotent response inhibition. We administered a syllogistic reasoning task containing no-conflict and conflict syllogisms saturated by socially relevant content. We found a typical belief-bias effect on invalid/believable conflict syllogisms, and accordingly all three types of inhibition accounted for reasoning performance only on valid/unbelievable conflict syllogisms, where belief-bias was not registered, indicating an inverse relation of bias and inhibition

Dual processing in syllogistic reasoning: An individual differences perspective

The study aimed to examine several assumptions of dual process theories of reasoning by employing individual difference approach. A set of categorical syllogisms was administered to a relatively large sample of participants (N = 247) along with attached confidence rating scales, and measures of intelligence and cognitive reflection. As expected, response accuracy on syllogistic reasoning tasks highly depended on task complexity and the status of belief-logic conflict, thus demonstrating belief-bias on the group level. Individual difference analyses showed that more biased subject also performed poorer on Raven's Matrices (r =.25) and Cognitive Reflection Test (r =.27), which is in line with assumptions that willingness to engage and capacities to carry out type 2 processes both contribute to understanding of rational thinking. Moreover, measures of cognitive decoupling were significantly correlated with the performance on conflict syllogisms (r =.20). Individual differences in sensitivity to conflict detection, on the other side, were not related to reasoning accuracy in general (r =.02). Yet, additional analyses showed that noteworthy correlation between these two can be observed for easier syllogistic reasoning tasks (r =.26). Such results indicate that boundary conditions of conflict detection should be viewed as a function of both tasks' and participants' characteristics

Conditional reflection and the Religion Reflection Scale: How familiarity with different domains influences cognitive reflection

A host of research has shown that those who are nonreligious tend to outscore those who are religious on measures of intelligence and cognitive reflection. The prevailing explanation for this phenomenon is that nonreligious people are more adept at overriding their initial intuitions, thus leading to their increased skepticism of intuitive supernatural beliefs. However, the argument is raised in this investigation that the current measures of cognitive reflection in the field may not encapsulate the totality of dual-process thinking. Just as math students outperform upper-level psychology students on measures of cognitive reflection related to their discipline (Study 1), so, too, may religious individuals outperform nonreligious individuals on measures of cognitive reflection relating to their discipline of familiarity: religion (Study 2). While support for this second hypothesis was wanting, special considerations should be given to find measures of cognitive reflection that appeal to the unique experiences of specific groups in question

Solving categorical syllogisms with singular premises

We elaborate on the approach to syllogistic reasoning based on "case identification" (Stenning & Oberlander, 1995; Stenning & Yule, 1997). It is shown that this can be viewed as the formalisation of a method of proof that dates back to Aristotle, namely proof by exposition (ecthesis), and that there are traces of this method in the strategies described by a number of psychologists, from Störring (1908) to the present day. It was hypothesised that by rendering individual cases explicit in the premises the chance that reasoners engage in a proof by exposition would be enhanced, and thus performance improved. To do so, we used syllogisms with singular premises (e. g., this X is Y). This resulted in a uniform increase in performance as compared to performance on the associated standard syllogisms. These results cannot be explained by the main theories of syllogistic reasoning in their current state