.A Validation and Exploration of the Collins-Michalski Theory of Plausible Reasoning
Deborah A. Boehm‐Davis, Kejitan Dontas, Ryszard S. Michalski · 1991
Collins & Michalski (1989) developed a descriptive theory pof plausible reasoning that provides a formal framework, a language, and a computational model for describing human plausible reasoning process. This current research was designed to validate the structural aspects of the theory and to examine the impact of world knowledge on the inference process. People were asked to make inferences about one of two domains: one where the subjects may have had prior knowledge that could be brought to bear on the inference process and one where they coud not have such knowledge. The inferences generated were analyzed within the framework of the model. The results suggested that the structural aspects of the original Collins & Michalski model were acequate to account for most of the reasoning patterns observed in the protocols. Further the results suggest that people rely heavily on their personal background knowledge when reasoning about a domain with which they are familiar.