Gricean Implicatures and Syllogistic Reasoning

Abstract

It is a common assumption that one type of Gricean error- interpreting the quantifier "some" as being incompatible with a situation in which "all" is the case-is an important factor in determining errors in syllogistic reasoning. However, the errors that would be predicted by Gricean theory were found to be surprisingly rare in a reanalysis of previously published research on syllogisms. In a series of four experiments, it is demonstrated that Gricean errors are common in simple, interpretational tasks but become less common as the logical demands of the task increase; and they seem to be virtually nonexistent in syllogistic reasoning tasks. The results are interpreted in terms of mental models theory under the assumption that increasing task complexity leads to greater elaboration of preliminary models.