The Activation of Hypotheses during Abductive Reasoning

Abductive reasoning, that is, finding an explanation for a set of observations, can be understood as a process of sequentially understanding and integrating new observations into a mental model about the current situation (Johnson & Krems, 2001; Josephson & Josephson, 1994). Whereas Johnson and Krems’ model focuses on conscious deliberate processes, it has been argued that automatic implicit processes also play an important role in abductive reasoning (e.g. Johnson, Zhang, & Wang, 1997). Adopting Kintsch`s (1998) construction-integration theory, we assume that automatic activation processes regulate the availability of possible explanations during the reasoning process. In our experiment, participants solved an artificial diagnosis task while the activation of explanatory hypotheses was measured. We found that explanatory hypotheses relevant in the current context for explaining a set of observations are kept in a more active state in memory than irrelevant or rejected hypotheses.