Models of consistency.

Full Abstract

This article presents a theory of how individuals detect whether descriptions of an entity are consistent or inconsistent. The theory postulates that individuals try to construct a mental model of the entity in which all the propositions are true. If they succeed, they infer that the description is consistent; otherwise, they infer that it is inconsistent. We report three experiments that corroborated the theory. Experiment 1 confirmed that evaluating consistency is easier when an initial model suffices than when reasoners have to find an alternative model. Experiment 2 established the occurrence of illusion, inferences about the properties of entities. Experiment 3 showed that the illusions correspond to mental models of the assertions, even when these models are wrong because they fail to represent what is false.

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Author information

Author/s: Legrenzi, Paolo (P); Girotto, Vittorio (V); Johnson-Laird, P N (PN);

Affiliation: University of Architecture, Venice, Italy.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS (Psychol Sci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Mar; vol 14 (issue 2) : pp 131-7

Dates: Created 2003/03/28; Completed 2003/06/06; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12661674, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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