title: The effect of negation on deductive inferences.
abstract: Research shows that negation can suppress the activation of propositions presented explicitly in text, but does negation have a similar effect on propositions that can be inferred? That is, does negation inhibit the inference process? Four experiments investigated whether a deductive inference that produces a negated conclusion (therefore not a) is made as readily as a similar inference form that yields an affirmative conclusion (therefore a). A combination of naming latencies, verification times, and reading times indicate that negation does not affect the deductive inference process itself, although it may inhibit the activation of inferred concepts.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Macalester College, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55105, USA. lea@macalester.edu
authors.forename: R Brooke
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Lea
authors.forename: Elizabeth J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Mulligan
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading