Figural Effects in Syllogistic Reasoning with Evaluation Paradigm: An Eye-Movement Study

Abstract

Figural effects demonstrate that the influence on reasoning performance derives from the figure of the presented syllogistic arguments (Johnson-Laird and Bara, 1984). It has been reported that figure P-M/M-S is easier to reason with than figure M-P/S-M with syllogistic generation paradigm (Johnson-Laird, 1984), where M is the middle term, S is the subject and P is the predicate of conclusion, respectively. However, the figural effects are still unclear in syllogistic evaluation paradigm. In order to study such effects, we employed the figure M-P/S-M/S-P and the figure P-M/M-S/S-P syllogistic evaluation tasks with 30 subjects using eye-movement. The results showed that figural effects that the figure P-M/M-S/S-P was more cognitively demanding than the figure M-P/S-M/S-P, occurred in major premise and conclusion for the early processes, and in both premises and conclusion for late processes, rather than in minor premise reported by Espino et al (2005) that the figure P-M/M-S has less cognitive load than the figure M-P/S-M with generation paradigm. Additionally, pre-/post-conclusion viewing analysis found that for the inspection times of both premises the figure P-M/M-S/S-P took up more cognitive resources than the figure M-P/S-M/S-P when after viewing the conclusion. The findings suggested there were differences in figural effects between evaluation and generation paradigm.KeywordsCognitive LoadLate ProcessWork Memory CapacityWork Memory LoadMiddle TermThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.