A "logical intuition" based on semantic associations.

Abstract

There is empirical evidence that people have some intuitive discomfort when they judge that a believable, but invalid response is logically valid. This has led to the hypothesis that there exists a form of "logical intuition" that is responsive to logical form. However, there is also clear evidence that when reasoning with identical forms of inference, responses are not uniform but are instead modulated by access to semantic information related to potential alternatives. In two preregistered studies, we examine the hypothesis that differential access to such information determines the extent to which intuitions signal discomfort. To examine this, we constructed syllogisms using the same logical form but having either few or many alternatives associated with the premises. In Study 1, we show that when accepting a believable conclusion as being valid, confidence was lower for syllogisms having many alternatives. In Study 2, we show that people "like" conclusions based on logically invalid syllogisms having few alternatives more than those based on syllogisms having many alternatives. These results provide clear evidence for a form of "logical intuition" that relies on access to semantic information rather than pure logical form. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).