Psychological Science ›› 2018, Vol. ›› Issue (4): 1017-1023.

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The relationship and theoretical model of inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning

  

  • Received:2017-11-25 Revised:2018-05-08 Online:2018-07-20 Published:2018-07-20

归纳推理和演绎推理的关系理论及其模型

雷明1,陈明慧1,赵维燕2,赵光1   

  1. 1. 辽宁师范大学脑与认知神经科学研究中心
    2. 济宁医学院精神卫生院
  • 通讯作者: 赵光

Abstract: Reasoning is a kind of cognitive process related to high-lever thinking activities. People can evaluate the relationship between the premise and the conclusion through different reasoning process.In the psychological field,inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning are two main aspects of reasoning psychology. The process of launching new specific conclusions according to general principles is called deductive reasoning.Inversely,inductive reasoning is the activity of thinking that induces general rules from specific things or phenomena.Existing studies focus on the nature and characteristics of the two types of reasoning, but only a few articles discuss on the relationship between the two and the underlying cognitive mechanism.However, it is no doubt that the relationship between inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning has become a key issue in the field of reasoning psychology.There are several theories supposed to reveal the relationship between inductive and deductive reasoning. For example, “single process theory” supports that inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning share the same cognitive process and based on the theory, “single dimension signal detection model” constructed. According to this model, valid propositions have greater intensity than invalid propositions deductive reasoning requires more support than inductive reasoning in the strength of evidence, shown as the judgment standard of deductive reasoning is higher than inductive reasoning.So the only difference between induction and deduction is the difference in reaction criteria. The opposite view comes from the “dual process theory”, which holds that inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning are two different cognitive processes.The studies of cognitive neurophysiology ,which provide strong evidence for this theory, has found that activation of brain regions is not exactly the same in the two reasoning processes and the two kind of reasoning affected by different heuristic and analysis process. More specifically,Induction and deduction are both influenced by the two mechanisms of analysis and inspiration, but the proportion is different: inductive judgment may be more affected by the fast heuristic process than analysis process, because the fast heuristic process only use context and the similarity of the information, and doesn’t need to judge whether the proposition in logic is valid or not; On the contrary, deductive judgment more affected by the slow process of analysis, the analysis process contains is a more cautious,usually more accurate reasoning. The “two dimensional signal detection model” supports the dual process theory and represents two angles of logic and similarity. According to this model,the subjects also need a standard to make inductive or deductive judgments,in order to distinguish the strong and the weak of the credibility, the valid and the invalid of the proposition. So the difference between the two kind of reasoning is the relative weights of similarity and logic, which reflected in the slope of the judgment standard.That is,deductive reasoning emphasizes the angle of logic in higher degree and has slower slope in decide boundary than inductive reasoning. ,Compared with the one dimensional signal detection model, the two dimensional signal detection model allows the accuracy of inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning have different judgments(i.e. hit rates) ,regardless the change of standard .To some extent,the two dimensional signal detection model can explain the relationship between inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning better. Based?on?the?comprehensive?analysis?of?previous?studies,we summarize the theories and mechanism about the relationship of inductive and deductive reasoning and try to put?forward?our?own?viewpoints?and?cognition.We propose that future research can focus on the time course of reasoning, and use new paradigms to analysis the similarities and differences between the inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning.What’s more,different research methods ,such as event-related potentials(ERP) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) ,should be taken to provide more convincing evidence for these theories and signal detection model .

Key words: Key word: inductive reasoning , deductive reasoning, single process theory , dual process theory

摘要: 推理是人类高级认知过程的一种,相关的心理学研究一般将其分为归纳推理和演绎推理两个方面。归纳推理是从特殊到一般的推理过程,与之相对的演绎推理则是从一般到特殊的过程。归纳推理和演绎推理的关系问题是当前心理推理研究领域的一个重点问题。这一问题主要有两种理论解释:一种是单过程理论,该理论认为归纳推理和演绎推理本质上是同一个认知过程,以单过程理论为基础构建的推理模型称为单维模型;另一种是双过程理论,认为归纳推理和演绎推理是两个不同的认知过程,并不同程度地受到启发和分析过程的影响。未来研究可多关注推理的时间进程,以及采用不同的研究方法对各自理论提供数据支持。

关键词: 关键词:归纳推理, 演绎推理, 单过程理论, 双过程理论