Differences in comprehending and acting on pandemic health risk information: a qualitative study using mental models.

BACKGROUND: A worldwide pandemic of a new and unknown virus is characterised by scientific uncertainty. However, despite this uncertainty, health authorities must still communicate complex health risk information to the public. The mental models approach to risk communication describes how people perceive and make decisions about complex risks, with the aim of identifying decision-relevant information that can be incorporated into risk communication interventions. This study explored how people use mental models to make sense of scientific information and apply it to their lives and behaviour in the context of COVID-19. METHODS: This qualitative study enrolled 15 male and female participants of different ages, with different levels of education and occupational backgrounds and from different geographical regions of Norway. The participants were interviewed individually, and the interview data were subjected to thematic analysis. The interview data were compared to a expert model of COVID-19 health risk communication based on online information from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Materials in the interview data not represented by expert model codes were coded inductively. The participants' perceptions of and behaviours related to health risk information were analysed across three themes: virus transmission, risk mitigation and consequences of COVID-19. RESULTS: The results indicate that people placed different meanings on the medical and scientific words used by experts to explain the pandemic (e.g., virus transmission and the reproduction number). While some people wanted to understand why certain behaviour and activities were considered high risk, others preferred simple, clear messages explaining what to do and how to protect themselves. Similarly, information about health consequences produced panic in some interviewees and awareness in others. CONCLUSION: There is no one-size-fits-all approach to public health risk communication. Empowering people with decision-relevant information necessitates targeted and balanced risk communication.

Does the inclusive disjunction really mean the conjunction of possibilities?

There is an ongoing dispute in the psychology of reasoning about how people interpret disjunctions, p or q. In the original mental models theory (MMT1) people interpret p or q as the disjunction of three possibilities (possibly p¬q, or possibly ¬pq, or possibly pq, where "¬" = not). p or q is true if one disjunct is actually true. In a recent revision of mental models theory (MMT2), people interpret p or q as a conjunction of the three possibilities, and they treat it as true only if each is possible and ¬p¬q is impossible. Two experiments investigated possibility and truth judgments about disjunctions given sets consisting of one or more of the four cases (p¬q, ¬pq, pq, and ¬p¬q). The results showed that in both possibility and truth judgments, participants' interpretations of disjunctions were only consistent with MMT1. Inclusive disjunctions imply the disjunction of the three possibilities, and they are true when one of the three cases (p¬q, ¬pq, and pq) is actual. These findings support MMT1, but not MMT2. In conclusion, the revised mental models theory may be unnecessary for disjunctions.

Rectifying the Mischaracterization of Logic by Mental Model Theorists.

Khemlani et al. (2018) mischaracterize logic in the course of seeking to show that mental model theory (MMT) can accommodate a form of inference ( I , let us label it) they find in a high percentage of their subjects. We reveal their mischaracterization and, in so doing, lay a landscape for future modeling by cognitive scientists who may wonder whether human reasoning is consistent with, or perhaps even capturable by, reasoning in a logic or family thereof. Along the way, we note that the properties touted by Khemlani et al. as innovative aspects of MMT-based modeling (e.g., nonmonotonicity) have for decades been, in logic, acknowledged and rigorously specified by families of (implemented) logics. Khemlani et al. (2018) further declare that I is "invalid in any modal logic." We demonstrate this to be false by our introduction (Appendix A) of a new propositional modal logic (within a family of such logics) in which I is provably valid, and by the implementation of this logic. A second appendix, B, partially answers the two-part question, "What is a formal logic, and what is it for one to capture empirical phenomena?"

Importancia del conocimiento pragmático en inferencia condicional: una aproximación experimental / Importance of pragmatic knowledge in conditional reasoning: an experimental approach

En este trabajo se estudia la influencia de variables de tipo pragmático en razonamiento condicional. Se manipuló: (a) la probabilidad de ocurrencia empírica de la relación entre el antecedente y el consecuente de los enunciados condicionales (determinista, probabilístico y ninguna relación); (b) la función pragmática de las premisas (causal, temporal, promesa/ amenaza), y (c) el tipo de regla condicional (Modus ponens, Modus tollens, Afirmación del consecuente y Negación del antecedente). Los resultados apoyan la influencia del conocimiento pragmático sobre las cuatro reglas de inferencia condicional, y son discutidos en términos de la teoría de modelos mentales y la teoría del doble proceso.

This paper sought to study the influence of pragmatic factors in conditional reasoning. We manipulated: (a) the probability of empirical occurrence of the relation between antecedent and consequent of conditionals (deterministic conditionals, probabilistic conditionals and those without any relation); (b) the pragmatic function of the premises (causal, temporal, promise vs. threat), and (c) the type of conditional rule (Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens, Affirmation of the Consequent and Denial of the Antecedent).The results obtained support the influence of pragmatic knowledge on the four conditional inference rules, and were discussed in terms of the mental models theory and the dual process theory.