General psychological theory of syllogistic reasoning

Develop a general psychological theory of syllogistic reasoning that adequately explains the discrepancies between normative logic and empirically observed human responses across categorical syllogisms.

Background

The paper situates this problem in the substantial divergence between logically normative responses and human responses in syllogistic reasoning. A cited meta-analysis found that participants frequently selected conclusions that were not logically valid, while relatively few selected the logically correct response that no valid conclusion could be derived. The authors note that the existing theories assessed in that meta-analysis fail to explain all of these discrepancies, leaving the development of a comprehensive psychological account unresolved.

References

None of the theories evaluated in the meta-analysis of \citet{Khemlani2012} adequately explain all gaps between normative and empirically observed responses, so the development of a general psychological theory remains an open problem.

— Response Variability and Stability in Human Reasoning  (2610.03008 - Bombach et al., 2 Oct 2026) in Section 1, Introduction