The role of text representation in students' ability to identify fallacious arguments.
Informal reasoning fallacies are arguments that, though they may seem persuasive, are not valid. The psychological aspect of informal reasoning fallacies, specifically the identification of factors that influence students' ability to identify fallacies, has not been the subject of empirical study. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that subjects' ability to identify fallacious arguments is associated with the representation of the argumentative text in the cognitive system. In the first experiment, we tested the hypothesis through a recall task. In the second experiment, we tested the hypothesis through a classification task. The results of the experiments confirm the research hypothesis and point to the role of argumentative structures in argumentation tasks.
Neuman
Yair
Y
Department of Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel. yneuman@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
Weizman
Erez
E
D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D011340:Problem Solving; D011582:Psychological Theory; D013334:Students