Illusory inferences: a novel class of erroneous deductions

The mental model theory postulates that reasoners build models of the situa tions described in premises, and that these models normally make explicit o nly what is true. The theory has an unexpected consequence: it predicts the occurrence of inferences that are compelling but invalid. They should aris e from reasoners failing to take into account what is false. Three experime nts corroborated the systematic occurrence of these illusory inferences, an d eliminated a number of alternative explanations for them. Their results i lluminate the controversy among various current theories of reasoning. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.