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Evidence for deductive reasoning: Implicit versus explicit recognition of syllogistic structure
Author(s) -
English Lyn
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
british journal of developmental psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.062
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 2044-835X
pISSN - 0261-510X
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-835x.1993.tb00611.x
Subject(s) - syllogism , deductive reasoning , logical reasoning , premise , psychology , set (abstract data type) , indeterminacy (philosophy) , context (archaeology) , cognitive psychology , perception , cognition , epistemology , computer science , philosophy , mathematics education , paleontology , neuroscience , biology , programming language
This study investigated children's and adults' ability to solve logical and illogical syllogisms, the latter involving unconnected premises. In Expt 1, 58 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds were individually presented with logical syllogisms set within a fantasy context involving toy play and child play, the latter in the absence of toys. Results showed that a high percentage of children were able to reason solely on the basis of the information given, making reference to the appropriate premise information in drawing their conclusions. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated Markovits, Schleifer & Fortier's (1989) claim that this ability is not sufficient evidence for deductive reasoning. Experiment 2 (168 primary school children) addressed both logical and illogical syllogisms, while Expt 3 (85 secondary students and 81 university students) examined illogical syllogisms only. The results of Expt 2 showed that children responded differently to the two syllogistic forms, with their responses to the illogical syllogisms indicating an implicit awareness of the unconnectedness of the premises. It is argued that this implicit understanding is sufficient evidence for deductive reasoning with illogical syllogisms and that an explicit recognition of indeterminacy, the criterion demanded by Markovits et al. , is a more sophisticated application of this reasoning. While the students in Expt 3 demonstrated a more explicit awareness, they nevertheless gave a large number of responses of the implicit type indicating the presence of some non‐age‐related differences in adults' ability explicitly to recognize situations of undecidability.