The Mental Possible Worlds Mechanism: A New Method for Analyzing Logical Reasoning Problems on the GRE
نویسنده
چکیده
We present a new psychological mechanism for analyzing complex reasoning problems such as the logical reasoning problems seen on the GRE (and other standardized tests). This mechanism includes a psychological counterpart to possible worlds semantics as typically seen in modal logic, and we thus refer to it as the ‘Mental Possible World Mechanism’ (MPWM). MPWM embodies the interaction between syntactic and semantic processes in reasoning that distinguishes the new Mental MetaLogic theory (Yang and Bringsjord, 2001) of reasoning, which provides, among other things, bridging relations between two major competing theories in the field: mental logic and mental models. Though the thrust of this first paper on MPWM is theoretical, some preliminary empirical evidence supporting MPWM is
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