Training Reasoning with Implication
Thomas Hardy Leahey · The Journal of General Psychology · 1977
Summary The purpose of this study was to modify fallacious reasoning with implication through a graduated series of training procedures designed to produce progressive insight into implication. Twenty-eight male and female college students were divided into trained (experimental) and untrained (control) groups. The implication task involved making inferences about unseen sides of cards given a rule and information on one side of the card. The experimental group showed significant gains in ability to correctly use implicational inference forms originally in error, while the control group showed no such gains. These results supported one of the implicational insight models proposed by Wason and Johnson-Laird, and indicated that Piaget's model of formal reasoning does not specify in sufficient detail the psychological processes involved in implicational reasoning.