The mental model theory of reasoning was developed by
Philip Johnson-Laird
Philip Nicholas Johnson-Laird, FRS, FBA (born 12 October 1936) is a philosopher of language and reasoning and a developer of the mental model theory of reasoning. He was a professor at Princeton University's Department of Psychology, as well a ...
and
Ruth M.J. Byrne
Ruth M.J. Byrne, FTCD, MRIA, (born 1962) is an Irish cognitive scientist and author of several books on human reasoning. She is the Professor of Cognitive Science, in the School of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Du ...
(Johnson-Laird and Byrne, 1991). It has been applied to the main domains of deductive inference including relational inferences such as spatial and temporal deductions; propositional inferences, such as conditional, disjunctive and negation deductions; quantified inferences such as syllogisms; and meta-deductive inferences.
Ongoing research on mental models and reasoning has led the theory to be extended to account for probabilistic inference (e.g., Johnson-Laird, 2006) and
counterfactual thinking
Counterfactual thinking is a concept in psychology that involves the human tendency to create possible alternatives to life events that have already occurred; something that is contrary to what actually happened. Counterfactual thinking is, as it ...
(Byrne, 2005).
See also
*
*
Psychology of reasoning
The psychology of reasoning (also known as the cognitive science of reasoning) is the study of how people reason, often broadly defined as the process of drawing conclusions to inform how people solve problems and make decisions. It overlaps w ...
References
* Byrne, R.M.J. (2005).
The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to Reality'. Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press.
* Johnson-Laird, P.N. (2006).
How We Reason'' New York: Oxford University Press.
* Johnson-Laird, P.N., & Byrne, R.M.J. (1991). ''Deduction.'' Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Psychological models
Reasoning
Theories of deduction
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