How do we tell an association from a rule? Comment on Sloman (1996).
Gerd Gigerenzer, Terry Regier · Psychological Bulletin · 1996
S.A. Sloman's (1996) intriguing argument for separate associative and rule-based reasoning systems is unfortunately damaged by a certain amount of slack in the distinction he makes between these two posited mental mechanisms.The authors suggest that the distinction could be sharpened by overt reference to explicit models of associative and rule-based processing.They also point out that "simultaneous contradictory belief," which Sloman takes as evidence for separate associative and rule-based systems, need not be interpreted in this fashion.It may also signal a number of other things, including the presence of linguistic ambiguity (as in the Linda problem), competing lines of formal reasoning (as in the Wason selection task), and unclarined assumptions (as in the 3 doors problem).