Preferred Mental Models in Syllogistic Reasoning

Inspired from previous research in the spatial reasoning domain, in this paper, we address the varying interpretations of premises of syllogistic problems among individuals and the differences in their resulting mental models. We conducted an experiment whose results show that model building is a relatively easy task for humans to do correctly and they do in fact have preferred models for most syllogisms, yet, without a relation to their responses. We report in-depth analysis of the models' canonicality in order to compare the model building behavior in humans to the processes implemented in mReasoner, a cognitive model that implements the Mental Model Theory.