Thompson, V.
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada
As little as twenty years ago, reasoning researchers presented participants with unfamiliar tasks using artificial content, which were designed to minimize the role of knowledge, memory, and beliefs in reasoning and decision making. Today, the pendulum has swung the other way- reasoning research is being enriched by, and becoming evermore coherent with mainstream cognitive psychological theorising. The aim of this symposium is to showcase the ways in which theories of reasoning are informed by basic memory processes. For example, there is a growing body of research addressing the relationship between recognition memory and the processes engaged to perform a reasoning task. This symposium brings together three of the participants in a recent debate on whether inferences can be made about developmental
changes in reasoning on the basis of recognition memory data (Sloutsky, Feeney, and Hayes). In this symposium, Sloutsky will present eye tracking data that is directly relevant to the issues raised in that debate, Hayes will consider whether recognition memory and inductive reasoning processes may be modelled in the same terms, and Feeney will attempt to arbitrate between accounts of adult inductive reasoning in part on the basis of recognition memory data. To illustrate the importance of associative processes in reasoning, Markovits and colleagues will discuss retrieval from semantic memory and how it relates to predictions about deductive and statistical reasoning ability. Inspired by the literature on metacognition and memory, Thompson will show how frameworks such as dual process theories of thinking may be informed by consideration of metacognitive processes. Collectively, these papers illustrate the “new paradigm” in reasoning that seeks to move away from reasoning research as an isolated enterprise to one that situates reasoning within the broader context of cognitive psychology.