Two models of syllogistic reasoning: An empirical comparison

Two theories of logical processing are compared in this study. The Atmosphere Effect, originating in the psychology of reasoning, predicts errors in deductive reasoning based on matching certain features of the premises with features of the conclusion. The Logical Ambiguity Hypothesis, originating in communication theory, predicts reasoning errors on the basis of internal set representations of the relationships implied by the premises. In a series of eight separate tests of the two theories, the Atmosphere Effect was significantly more successful than the Ambiguity Hypothesis in predicting the most likely responses to premise pairs.