Effects of order of presentation on conditional reasoning

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe main goal of this research is to study whether or not the order of presentation of the premises in a logical argument form, such as a conditional reasoning task, could affect the processing time of premises and conclusion and the conclusions that participants accept as valid in an evaluation task. One experiment is reported in which participants are asked to evaluate computer-presented conditionals. Half of the problems were presented in traditional order (“if p then q, p, therefore q”) and half in inverse order (“p, if p then q, therefore q”). The experiment showed that there was an order effect in processing the premises and conclusion: participants took longer to read the premises in traditional order than in inverse order, but they took longer to read the conclusion in inverse order than in traditional order. The finding is discussed with respect to the main theories of conditional reasoning.