Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 1, 2025

Using Eye Movements Recorded in the Visual World Paradigm to Explore the Online Processing of Spoken Language
Published on: October 13, 2018
What is required for the truth of a general conditional?
Moyun Wang1, David Over2, Lixia Liang1
1School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China.
Abstract:
General conditionals, if p then q, can be used to make assertions about sets of objects. Previous studies have generally found that people judge the probability of one these conditionals to be the conditional probability of q given p, P(q|p). Two experiments investigated the qualitative relation between the exhaustive possibilities, p & q, p & ¬q, ¬p & q, and ¬p & ¬q, and truth and possibility judgements about general conditionals. In Experiment 1, for truth judgements, people evaluated a general conditional as "true" in sets containing p & q cases but no p & ¬q, and "true" judgements depended only on P(q|p). In Experiment 2, for possibility judgements, people's responses implied that only p & q cases have to be possible in a set for a general conditional to be true of the set. Our results add to earlier findings against representing a general conditional as the material conditional of extensional logic, and they provide novel disconfirmation of two recent proposals: the modal semantics of revised mental model theory and certain inferentialist accounts of conditionals. They supply new support for suppositional theories of conditionals.
Related Concept Videos
Deductive Reasoning
For example, a researcher can deduce specific predictions...
Criteria for Causality: Bradford Hill Criteria - II
Criteria for Causality: Bradford Hill Criteria - I
Inductive Reasoning
Inductive reasoning is common in descriptive science. A life scientist makes observations and records them. This data can be qualitative or...
Constraints and Statical Determinacy
Counterfactual Thinking

