ABSTRACT
In psychology of human deductive reasoning, mental logic theory claims that people reason by applying inference schemas, and mental models theory claims that people reason by constructing mental models. In this chapter, the authors propose a mental metalogic theory studying the interactions between applying inference schemas and constructing mental models based on the current theories of mental logic and mental models. They report a set of experiments designed to examine possible interactions of this kind. The authors' strategy for constructing experimental problems was to integrate one problem type used in mental logic research and another problem type used in mental model research. There are long-standing controversies between mental logic and mental model theories, as well as other emerging controversies between the mental logic/model paradigm, mental metalogic, and other approaches in reasoning.
