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Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

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Friday Afternoon Papers 132–133<br />

4:50–5:05 (132)<br />

Belief Trumps Logical Structure. RUSSELL REVLIN, University of<br />

California, Santa Barbara, AARON J. RICE, University of Pennsylvania<br />

School of Medicine, & DUSTIN P. CALVILLO, University of<br />

California, Santa Barbara—In a counterfactual reasoning study, university<br />

students were asked to certify the consistency among a set of<br />

three statements: One was a generality about which they had a prior<br />

belief; the other two were pertinent facts. <strong>The</strong>y then had to accept a<br />

fourth statement, “for the sake of argument,” that introduced inconsistencies<br />

into the set. To restore consistency, subjects rejected two statements<br />

in light of the assumption. Prior research proposes that (1) students<br />

restore consistency by imagining a possible world based on the<br />

lawlike characteristics of the generality and (2) the logical structure of<br />

the statements, and not their believability, controls the counterfactual<br />

strategy employed. In contrast, by using a wider range of beliefs among<br />

the statements, the present study shows that the effect of logical structure<br />

is illusory: <strong>The</strong> logical forms alter the post hoc believability of the<br />

statements, so that the decisions are based primarily on belief.<br />

21<br />

5:10–5:25 (133)<br />

Belief Bias and Working Memory: Implications for Impulsivity.<br />

ALLISON MATTHEWS, PAUL WHITNEY, & JOHN M. HINSON,<br />

Washington State University (read by Paul Whitney)—We previously<br />

demonstrated that working memory (WM) loads increase impulsive<br />

decision making in a simulated gambling task. <strong>The</strong> present study extends<br />

these results to the relationship between individual differences<br />

in WM and temporal reasoning. Participants judged whether a conclusion<br />

followed logically from a set of premises. For example, the<br />

conclusion “Elvis starred in Jailhouse Rock during the rock-n-roll<br />

era” is not a logically valid conclusion from the following premises:<br />

<strong>The</strong> rock-n-roll era was before the punk music era, grunge music was<br />

popular before the punk music era, <strong>The</strong> Silence of the Lambs was released<br />

during the punk music era. <strong>The</strong>re is a general tendency to accept<br />

an invalid conclusion as valid when the conclusion itself is believable.<br />

Our data demonstrate that people with lower WM spans are especially<br />

susceptible to belief-based errors. <strong>The</strong> results support a general model<br />

of impulsivity that treats prior beliefs as a prepotent response.

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