Modeling causal conditional reasoning data using SDT: caveats and new insights

Abstract

In deductive reasoning, people are asked to infer the truth of an argument’s conclusion given a set of premises. Research into the processes underlying deduction has focused on examining how well people discriminate between logically valid and invalid arguments, and how irrelevant factors such as one’s prior beliefs interfere with the ability to reason logically (Evans et al., 1983). This normative approach to validity has traditionally informed both practice and theory in the literature. However, its critics argue that “normativism” often leads investigators to biased or misleading interpretations of phenomena (Elqayam and Evans, 2011).