The Comprehension of Counterfactual Conditionals: Evidence From Eye-Tracking in the Visual World Paradigm.

Three experiments tracked participants' eye-movements to examine the time course of comprehension of the dual meaning of counterfactuals, such as "if there had been oranges then there would have been pears." Participants listened to conditionals while looking at images in the visual world paradigm, including an image of oranges and pears that corresponds to the counterfactual's conjecture, and one of no oranges and no pears that corresponds to its presumed facts, to establish at what point in time they consider each one. The results revealed striking individual differences: some participants looked at the negative image and the affirmative one, and some only at the affirmative image. The first experiment showed that participants who looked at the negative image increased their fixation on it within half a second. The second experiment showed they do so even without explicit instructions, and the third showed they do so even for printed words.

A New Look to a Classic Issue: Reasoning and Academic Achievement at Secondary School.

Higher-order thinking abilities such as abstract reasoning and meaningful school learning occur sequentially. The fulfillment of these tasks demands that people activate and use all of their working memory resources in a controlled and supervised way. The aims of this work were: (a) to study the interplay between two new reasoning measures, one mathematical (Cognitive Reflection Test) and the other verbal (Deductive Reasoning Test), and a third classical visuo-spatial reasoning measure (Raven Progressive Matrices Test); and (b) to investigate the relationship between these measures and academic achievement. Fifty-one 4th grade secondary school students participated in the experiment and completed the three reasoning tests. Academic achievement measures were the final numerical scores in seven basic subjects. The results demonstrated that cognitive reflection, visual, and verbal reasoning are intimately related and predicts academic achievement. This work confirms that abstract reasoning constitutes the most important higher-order cognitive ability that underlies academic achievement. It also reveals the importance of dual processes, verbal deduction and metacognition in ordinary teaching and learning at school.

Executive Functions and the Improvement of Thinking Abilities: The Intervention in Reading Comprehension.

In this paper, we propose a preliminary theory of executive functions that address in a specific way their relationship with working memory (WM) and higher-level cognition. It includes: (a) four core on-line WM executive functions that are involved in every novel and complex cognitive task; (b) two higher order off-line executive functions, planning and revision, that are required to resolving the most complex intellectual abilities; and (c) emotional control that is involved in any complex, novel and difficult task. The main assumption is that efficiency on thinking abilities may be improved by specific instruction or training on the executive functions necessary to solving novel and complex tasks involved in these abilities. Evidence for the impact of our training proposal on WM's executive functions involved in higher-level cognitive abilities comes from three studies applying an adaptive program designed to improve reading comprehension in primary school students by boosting the core WM's executive functions involved in it: focusing on relevant information, switching (or shifting) between representations or tasks, connecting incoming information from text with long-term representations, updating of the semantic representation of the text in WM, and inhibition of irrelevant information. The results are consistent with the assumption that cognitive enhancements from the training intervention may have affected not only a specific but also a more domain-general mechanism involved in various executive functions. We discuss some methodological issues in the studies of effects of WM training on reading comprehension. The perspectives and limitations of our approach are finally discussed.

Normative data on the n-back task for children and young adolescents.

The n-back task is a frequently used measure of working memory (WM) in cognitive neuroscience research contexts, and it has become widely adopted in other areas over the last decade. This study aimed to obtain normative data for the n-back task from a large sample of children and adolescents. To this end, a computerized verbal n-back task with three levels of WM load (1-back, 2-back, and 3-back) was administered to 3722 Spanish school children aged 7-13 years. Results showed an overall age-related increase in performance for the different levels of difficulty. This trend was less pronounced at 1-back than at 2-back when hits were considered. Gender differences were also observed, with girls outperforming boys although taking more time to respond. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed. Normative data stratified by age and gender for the three WM load levels are provided.

Perceptual inferences about indeterminate arrangements of figures.

Previous studies in spatial propositional reasoning showed that adults use a particular strategy for making representations and inferences from indeterminate descriptions (those consistent with different alternatives). They do not initially represent all the alternatives, but construct a unified mental representation that includes a kind of mental footnote. Only when the task requires access to alternatives is the unified representation re-inspected. The degree of generalisation of this proposal to other perceptual situations was evaluated in three experiments with children, adolescents and adults, using a perceptual inference task with diagrammatic premises that gave information about the location of one of three possible objects. Results obtained with this very quick perceptual task support the kind of representation proposed from propositional spatial reasoning studies. However, children and adults differed in accuracy, with the results gradually changing with age: indeterminacy leads adults to require extra time for understanding and inferring alternatives, whereas children commit errors. These results could help inform us of how people can make inferences from diagrammatic information and make wrong interpretations.

The semantics of 'unless' conditionals: evidence from 'unless' and disjunctive inferences.

We report the results of an experiment investigating conditional inferences from conditional assertions such as 'Juan won't go to León unless Nuria goes to Madrid' and 'Either Nuria goes to Madrid or Juan won't go to León'. This experiment addresses Dancygier's claims about the semantics of 'unless' by examining inferential endorsements of 'not-A unless B' and 'Either B or not-A' in the canonical order, presenting the categorical premise after the conditional assertions, and in the inverse order, presenting the categorical premise before the conditional assertions. The results of the experiment confirm that the representation of 'unless' includes two possibilities, although as Dancygier holds one of the possibilities may not be complete. The implications of the results are discussed in the context of the strategic nature of conditional reasoning and recent convergent theories of linguistic processing.

The semantics of ‘unless’ conditionals: evidence from ‘unless’ and disjunctive inferences

We report the results of an experiment investigating conditional inferences from conditional assertions such as ‘Juan won’t go to León unless Nuria goes to Madrid’ and ‘Either Nuria goes to Madrid or Juan won’t go to León’. This experiment addresses Dancygier’s claims about the semantics of ‘unless’ by examining inferential endorsements of ‘not-A unless B’ and ‘Either B or not-A’ in the canonical order, presenting the categorical premise after the conditional assertions, and in the inverse order, presenting the categorical premise before the conditional assertions. The results of the experiment confirm that the representation of ‘unless’ includes two possibilities, although as Dancygier holds one of the possibilities may not be complete. The implications of the results are discussed in the context of the strategic nature of conditional reasoning and recent convergent theories of linguistic processing (AU)

Se presentan los resultados de un experimento en el que se investigaron las inferencias realizadas a partir de enunciados condicionales como ‘Juan no irá a León a menos que Nuria vaya Madrid’ y ‘O Nuria va a Madrid o Juan no irá a León’. En este experimento se abordan las concepciones de Dancygier sobre la semántica de ‘a menos que’ mediante el estudio de las inferencias que se extraen de ‘no-A a menos que B’ y de ‘o B o no-A’, en el orden canónico, al presentar la premisa categórica después de la afirmación condicional; y en el orden inverso, presentando la premisa categórica antes que la afirmación condicional. Los resultados confirman que la representación de ‘a menos que’ incluye dos posibilidades aunque, como Dancygier sostiene, una de las posibilidades puede no ser completa. Las implicaciones de los resultados se discuten en el contexto de la naturaleza estratégica del razonamiento condicional y de las teorías convergentes recientes sobre el procesamiento lingüístico (AU)

Working memory, text comprehension, and propositional reasoning: a new Semantic Anaphora WM test.

The aim of this study was to present a new working memory test following the line of work started by García-Madruga et al. (2007) and to examine its relation to reading comprehension and propositional reasoning measures. In that study we designed a new working memory span test--based on Daneman & Carpenter's (1980) Reading Span Test (RST)--in which the processing task called for an inferential decision--to resolve a pronominal anaphora based on Morpho-Syntactic cues and had people recall the result of this inference. In the current study, besides the RST and the Morpho-Syntactic Anaphora test, we presented a new Semantic Anaphora measure. In order to check the validity of this new Working Memory (WM) task, we used the same reasoning task used in the previous study as well as a new reading comprehension test. The results show the tight relationship amongst working memory, reading comprehension and reasoning, and confirm the validity of the new WM measure.

Working memory, text comprehension, and propositional reasoning: a new semantic anaphora WM test

The aim of this study was to present a new working memory test following the line of work started by García- Madruga et al. (2007) and to examine its relation to reading comprehension and propositional reasoning measures. In that study we designed a new working memory span test -based on Daneman & Carpenter's (1980) Reading Span Test (RST)- in which the processing task called for an inferential decision -to resolve a pronominal anaphora based on Morpho-Syntactic cues- and had people recall the result of this inference. In the current study, besides the RST and the Morpho-Syntactic Anaphora test, we presented a new Semantic Anaphora measure. In order to check the validity of this new Working Memory (WM) task, we used the same reasoning task used in the previous study as well as a new reading comprehension test. The results show the tight relationship amongst working memory, reading comprehension and reasoning, and confirm the validity of the new WM measure (AU)

El propósito de este trabajo es presentar una nueva prueba de memoria operativa y examinar su relación con la comprensión lectora y el razonamiento, en la línea comenzada por el estudio de García-Madruga et al. (2007). En ese estudio se diseñó una nueva medida de amplitud de memoria operativa -basada en Reading Span Test (RST) de Daneman & Carpenter (1980)- en la que la tarea de procesamiento exigía la realización de una inferencia -resolver una anáfora pronominal a partir de los rasgos Morfosintácticos- y los participantes debían recordar el resultado de esta inferencia. Además del RST y la prueba de Anáforas Morfosintácticas, en el presente estudio presentamos una nueva medida de Anáforas Semánticas. Para comprobar la validez de esta nueva tarea de Memoria Operativa (MO) hemos utilizado la misma tarea de razonamiento que en el estudio anterior, así como una nueva tarea de comprensión lectora. Los resultados muestran la estrecha relación entre memoria operativa, comprensión lectora y razonamiento, y confirman la validez de la nueva medida de MO (AU)

Reasoning with 'Unless' counterfactual conditionals

Este artículo aborda el estudio de enunciados contra fácticos con 'a menos que', tales como 'Virginia no aprobará el examen a menos que estudie más' y 'Virginia no habría aprobado el examen a menos que hubiera estudiado más'. 'A menos que' es un condicional negativo que es semánticamente equivalente a 'si no'; sin embargo, algunos autores han sostenido que 'a menos que' está más estrechamente relacionado con 'sólo si' que con 'sino'. En este trabajo se presentan dos experimentos en los que se comparan las inferencias condicionales a partir de enunciados fácticos y contrafácticos con 'a menos que', 'si no' y 'sólo si'. En el primer experimento se comparó 'no-A a menos que B' y 'si no-B entonces no-A' y se encontraron diferencias sólo en los enunciados 'si no' fácticos entre las inferencias afirmativas (B luego A, A luego B) y negativas (no-B luego no-A, no-A luego no-B). En el segundo experimento se comparó 'no-A a menos que B' y 'A sólo si B'. No se encontraron diferencias entre las inferencias afirmativas y negativas con los enunciados 'a menos que' y 'sólo si' fácticos, mientras que hubo más inferencias afirmativas que negativas con los enunciados 'a menos que' y 'sólo si' contrafácticos. En ambos experimentos las latencias de respuesta fueron más rápidas para las inferencias de 'B a A' que para las inferencias de 'A a B'. En la discusión se analizan, en el contexto de la teoría de los modelos mentales, las implicaciones de los resultados encontrados respecto al procesamiento y representaciones mentales de los enunciados contrafácticos con 'a menos que', 'si no' y 'sólo si' (AU)

This article tackles factual and counterfactual 'unless' expressions such as 'Virginia will not pass the exam unless she works harder' and 'Virginia would not have passed the exam unless she had worked harder'. 'Unless' isa negative conditional that is semantically equivalent to 'if not'. However, some authors have claimed that 'unless' is more closely related to 'only if' than to ‘if not'. We report two experiments that compare conditional inferences from ‘unless' to 'if-not'’ and 'only if' factual and counterfactual conditionals. The first experiment compared 'not-A unless B' and 'if not-B then not-A' and showed a difference between affirmative (i.e. B therefore A, A therefore B) and negative (i.e. not-B therefore not-A, not-A therefore not-B) inferences only for factual 'if not'. The second experiment compared 'not-A unless B' and 'A only if B' and showed no difference between affirmative and negative inferences for factual 'unless' and 'only if', where as the affirmative inferences were higher for counterfactual 'unless' and 'only if'. In both experiments latency results confirmed that inferences from 'B to A' were faster than from 'A to B' for 'unless' and 'only if'. The implications of the results for the mental representations and processing of counterfactual 'unless', 'if not' and 'only if' are discussed in the context of mental model theory (AU)

Reasoning with ‘Unless’ counterfactual conditionals

This article tackles factual and counterfactual 'unless' expressions such as 'Virginia will not pass the exam unless she works harder' and 'Virginia would not have passed the exam unless she had worked harder'. 'Unless' is a negative conditional that is semantically equivalent to 'if not'. However, some authors have claimed that 'unless' is more closely related to 'only if' than to 'if not'. We report two experiments that compare conditional inferences from 'unless' to 'if-not' and 'only if' factual and counterfactual conditionals. The first experiment compared ‘not-A unless B’ and 'if not-B then not-A' and showed a difference between affirmative (i.e. B therefore A,A therefore B) and negative (i.e. not-B therefore not-A, not-A therefore not-B) inferences only for factual ‘if not’. The second experiment compared‘ not-A unless B’ and 'A only if B' and showed no difference between affirmative and negative inferences for factual ‘unless’ and ‘only if’, where as the affirmative inferences were higher for counterfactual ‘unless’ and ‘only if’. In both experiments latency results confirmed that inferences from 'B to A' were faster than from 'A to B' for 'unless' and 'only if'. The implications of the results for the mental representations and processing ofcounterfactual 'unless', 'if not' and 'only if' are discussed in the context of mental model theory (AU)

Este artículo aborda el estudio de enunciados contrafácticos con 'a menos que', tales como 'Virginia no aprobará el examen a menos que estudie más' y 'Virginia no habría aprobado el examen a menos que hubiera estudiado más'. 'A menos que’ es un condicional negativo que es semánticamente equivalente a 'si no'; sin embargo, algunos autores han sostenido que ‘a menos que’ está más estrechamente relacionado con 'sólo si' que con 'sino'. En este trabajo se presentan dos experimentos en los que se comparan las inferencias condicionales a partir de enunciados fácticos y contrafácticos con 'a menos que', 'si no' y 'sólo si'. En el primer experimento se comparó 'no-A a menos que B' y 'si no-B entonces no-A' y se encontraron diferencias sólo en los enunciados 'si no' fácticos entre las inferencias afirmativas (B luego A, A luego B) y negativas (no-B luego no-A, no-A luego no-B). En el segundo experimento se comparó ‘no-A a menos que B' y 'A sólo si B'. No se encontraron diferencias entre las inferencias afirmativas y negativas con los enunciados 'a menos que' y 'sólo si 'fácticos, mientras que hubo más inferencias afirmativas que negativas con los enunciados 'a menos que' y 'sólo si' contrafácticos. En ambos experimentos las latencias de respuesta fueron más rápidas para las inferencias de 'B a A' que para las inferencias de 'A a B'. En la discusión se analizan, en el contexto de la teoría de los modelos mentales, las implicaciones de los resultados encontrados respecto al procesamiento y representaciones mentales de los enunciados contrafácticos con 'a menos que', 'si no' y 'sólo si' (AU)

Indicative and counterfactual 'only if' conditionals.

We report three experiments to test the possibilities reasoners think about when they understand a conditional of the form 'A only if B' compared to 'if A then B'. The experiments examine conditionals in the indicative mood (e.g., A occurred only if B occurred) and counterfactuals in the subjunctive mood (A would have occurred only if B had occurred). The first experiment examines the conjunctions of events that reasoners judge to be consistent with conditionals, e.g., A and B, not-A and not-B. It shows that people think about one possibility to understand 'if' and two possibilities to understand 'only if'; they think about two possibilities to understand counterfactual 'if' and 'only if'. The second experiment shows that the possibilities people think about when they understand 'only if' are in a different temporal order (e.g., B and A) to the possibilities they think about for 'if' (A and B). The third experiment shows that people make different inferences from 'only if' and 'if' conditionals and counterfactuals. The implications of the results for theories of counterfactual conditionals are considered.

Unless reasoning.

We report the results of two experiments investigating conditional inferences from conditional unless assertions, such as Juan is not in León unless Nuria is in Madrid. Experiments 1 and 2 check Fillenbaum's hypothesis about the semantic similarity of unless with if not and only if assertions; both also examine inferential endorsements (Experiment 1) and endorsements and latencies (Experiment 2) of the four logically equivalent conditional formulations: if A then B, if not-B then not-A, A only if B and notA unless B. The results of these experiments show the similarity of unless and only if confirming that the representation of both conditionals from the outset probably include two possibilities directionally oriented from B to A; results also confirm the especial difficulty of unless assertions. The implications of the results are discussed in the context of recent psychological and linguistic theories of the meaning of unless.

Unless Reasoning

We report the results of two experiments investigating conditional inferences from conditional unless assertions, such as Juan is not in León unless Nuria is in Madrid.Experiments 1 and 2 check Fillenbaum’s hypothesis about the semantic similarity of unless with if not and only if assertions; both also examine inferential endorsements(Experiment 1) and endorsements and latencies (Experiment 2) of the four logically equivalent conditional formulations: if A then B, if not-B then not-A, A only if B and not-A unless B. The results of these experiments show the similarity of unless and only if, confirming that the representation of both conditionals from the outset probably include two possibilities directionally oriented from B to A; results also confirm the especial difficulty of unless assertions. The implications of the results are discussed in the context of recent psychological and linguistic theories of the meaning of unless (AU)

Se presentan los resultados de dos experimentos que investigan las inferencias a partir de enunciados condicionales a menos que, tales como «Juan no está en León a menos que Nuria esté en Madrid». Los experimentos 1 y 2 comprueban la hipótesis de Fillenbaum sobre la similaridad semántica de los enunciados a menos que con si no y sólo si; ambos experimentos examinan las respuestas inferenciales (Experimento 1) y las respuestas inferenciales y las latencias (Experimento 2) de las cuatro formulaciones condicionales lógicamente equivalentes: si A entonces B, si no-B entonces no-A, A sólo si B y no-A amenos que B. Los resultados muestran la similaridad de a menos que y sólo si, confirmando que la representación de ambos condicionales probablemente incluya desde el principio dos posibilidades orientadas direccionalmente desde B a A; los resultados también confirman la dificultad especial de las afirmaciones del tipo a menos que. Las implicaciones de los resultados se comentan en el contexto de las teorías psicológicas y lingüísticas sobre el significado de a menos que (AU)

Inferences from semifactual 'even if' conditionals.

We report three experiments on semifactual conditionals such as 'even if he had worn his seatbelt he would have been injured'. Semifactuals contain a counterfactual antecedent (the presupposed fact is, he did not wear a seatbelt) and a true consequent (the fact is, he was injured). The experiments show that from the denial of the antecedent, 'he did not wear his seatbelt', reasoners do not infer the standard conclusion 'he was not injured' but instead they infer the asymmetric conclusion, 'he was injured'. From the affirmation of the consequent, 'he was injured', they do not infer the standard conclusion 'he wore his seatbelt' but instead they infer that there is no valid conclusion. The first experiment shows this pattern for 'even if' subjunctive conditionals compared to 'if' indicative conditionals, the second extends it to 'even if' subjunctive conditionals compared to 'even though' indicative concessives, and the third extends it to 'if...also/still' subjunctive conditionals. The results suggest that people think about two possibilities to understand a semifactual: the conjecture, he wore his seatbelt and he was injured, and the presupposed facts, he did not wear his seatbelt and he was injured.

An associative framework for probability judgment: an application to biases.

Three experiments show that understanding of biases in probability judgment can be improved by extending the application of the associative-learning framework. In Experiment 1, the authors used M. A. Gluck and G. H. Bower's (1988a) diagnostic-learning task to replicate apparent base-rate neglect and to induce the conjunction fallacy in a later judgment phase as a by-product of the conversion bias. In Experiment 2, the authors found stronger evidence of the conversion bias with the same learning task. In Experiment 3, the authors changed the diagnostic-learning task to induce some conjunction fallacies that were not based on the conversion bias. The authors show that the conjunction fallacies obtained in Experiment 3 can be explained by adding an averaging component to M. A. Gluck and G. H. Bower's model.

Effects of an intervention in active strategies for text comprehension and recall.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of an intervention program to promote active text-processing strategies (main-idea identification and summarization) at two developmental levels (12- and 16-year-olds). The independent variables were training condition (experimental and control) and school level (7th and 10th grades). Several measures were taken as dependent variables: reading span, reading time, construction of macrostructure, and structural recall. The hypothesis claimed that training would increase comprehension and recall significantly. Furthermore, as a result of the training program, a reduction in developmental differences in the experimental groups at posttest was also expected. Results supported the predictions, showing a significant improvement in the experimental groups' reading comprehension and recall. These results are discussed in terms of the importance of active and self-controlled strategies for text comprehension and recall.

Mental models in deductive reasoning.

We report research investigating the role of mental models in deduction. The first study deals with conjunctive inferences (from one conjunction and two conditional premises) and disjunctive inferences (from one disjunction and the same two conditionals). The second study examines reasoning from multiple conditionals such as: If e then b; If a then b; If b then c; What follows between a and c? The third study addresses reasoning from different sorts of conditional assertions, including conditionals based on if then, only if, and unless. The paper also presents research on figural effects in syllogistic reasoning, on the effects of structure and believability in reasoning from double conditionals, and on reasoning from factual, counterfactual, and semifactual conditionals. The findings of these studies support the model theory, pose some difficulties for rule theories, and show the influence on reasoning of the linguistic structure and the semantic content of problems.

Priming in deduction: a spatial arrangement task.

The mental model theory assumes that people reason by manipulating mental representations of states of the word, called "mental models." In the present study we used a new deduction task based on diagrammatic premises. We show that a premise can prime other premises that induce similar mental models in a way analogous to the case of words with related meanings, which prime one another. We present three experiments. In Experiment 1 we used an evaluation task. In Experiment 2, a construction task was used. The priming effect was obtained in both cases. In a third experiment we show that the priming effect was still present when partcipants were instructed to ignore a prime displayed before the premises. In all three experiments we compared determinate and indeterminate problems and found faster responses in the former.