The relevance effect and conditionals

More than a decade of research has found strong evidence for P(if A, then C)=P(C|A) (“the Equation”). We argue, however, that this hypothesis provides an overly simplified picture due to its inability to account for relevance. We manipulated relevance in the evaluation of the probability and accepta...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognition 2016-05, Vol.150, p.26-36
Main Authors: Skovgaard-Olsen, Niels, Singmann, Henrik, Klauer, Karl Christoph
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Concessive conditionals
Effect Modifier, Epidemiologic
Female
Humans
Indicative conditionals
Internet
Judgment
Male
Middle Aged
Problem Solving
Random Allocation
Reasons
Relevance
The Equation
The New Paradigm
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:More than a decade of research has found strong evidence for P(if A, then C)=P(C|A) (“the Equation”). We argue, however, that this hypothesis provides an overly simplified picture due to its inability to account for relevance. We manipulated relevance in the evaluation of the probability and acceptability of indicative conditionals and found that relevance moderates the effect of P(C|A). This corroborates the Default and Penalty Hypothesis put forward in this paper. Finally, the probability and acceptability of concessive conditionals (“Even if A, then still C”) were investigated and it was found that the Equation provides a better account of concessive conditionals than of indicatives across relevance manipulations.
ISSN:0010-0277
1873-7838
DOI:10.1016/j.cognition.2015.12.017