ABSTRACT
How do people make inferences? For several decades, researchers have been attempting to answer this question, but have often conceptualised the possible answers as being mutually exclusive. For example, in the past we have been presented with the option of choosing between two different types of general-purpose reasoning theory. On the one hand, it has been asserted that all people reason by the use of mental models every time they attempt to make an inference. For this type of process, information is represented in the form of spatial arrays, akin to mental diagrams, from which further information can be inferred (e.g., Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991). On the other hand, it has been asserted that deduction rules are the exclusive tools of thought. Here, abstract rules are applied to verbal/propositional representations (e.g., Rips, 1994). We therefore supposedly need to be able to decide upon the nature of a hypothesised fundamental reasoning mechanism: a device, or module, whose operation underpins all reasoning (Roberts, 1993, 1997, 2000a).
