Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Two experiments on spatial relational inference investigated effects known from relational and syllogistic reasoning. (1) Continuity effect; n-term-series problems with continuous (W r1 X, X r2 Y, Y r3 Z) and semi-continuous (X r2 Y, Y r3 Z, W r1 X) premise order are easier than tasks with discontinuous order (Y r3 Z, W r1 X, X r2 Y). (2) Figurai bias: the order of terms in the premises (X r Y. Y r Z or Y r X, Z r Y) effects the order of terms in the conclusion (X r Z or Z r X). In the first experiment subjects made more errors and took more time to process the premises when in discontinuous order. In the second experiment subjects showed the general preference for the term order Z r X in the generated conclusions, modulated by a "figural bias": subjects used X r Z more often if the premise term order was X r Y , Y r Z, whereas Z r X was used most often for the premise term order Y r X, Z r Y. Results are discussed in the framework of mental model theory with special reference to computational models of spatial relational inference.