The role of text representation in students' ability to identify fallacious arguments

Informal reasoning fallacies are arguments that, though they may seem persuasive, are not valid. The psychological aspect of informal reasoning fallacies, specifically the identification of factors that influence students' ability to identify fallacies, has not been the subject of empirical stu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology Human experimental psychology, 2003-07, Vol.56 (5), p.849-864
Main Authors: Neuman, Yair, Weizman, Erez
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition. Intelligence
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Memory
Mental Recall
Problem Solving
Psychological Theory
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reasoning. Problem solving
Students
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Summary:Informal reasoning fallacies are arguments that, though they may seem persuasive, are not valid. The psychological aspect of informal reasoning fallacies, specifically the identification of factors that influence students' ability to identify fallacies, has not been the subject of empirical study. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that subjects' ability to identify fallacious arguments is associated with the representation of the argumentative text in the cognitive system. In the first experiment, we tested the hypothesis through a recall task. In the second experiment, we tested the hypothesis through a classification task. The results of the experiments confirm the research hypothesis and point to the role of argumentative structures in argumentation tasks.
ISSN:0272-4987
1464-0740
DOI:10.1080/02724980244000666