Heuristic and analytic processes in propositional reasoning with negatives

The authors report 4 studies on heuristic and analytic processes in conditi onal reasoning with negations and show that a heuristic negative conclusion bias cannot account for the effects observed on problem-solving latencies derived from eye-movement measures (Experiment 1) and a novel mouse-trackin g methodology (Experiment 2). A double negation elimination process can acc ount for both the latency and response-frequency effects of a negation in t he clause about which an inference is made. It is further shown that other negation effects cannot be explained by an affirmative premise bias propose d in the literature. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrate that a novel availabil ity hypothesis provides a viable alternative. It is argued that extant anal ytic theories need to be extended to incorporate a validating search for co unter examples and need to specify how pragmatic and comprehension processe s influence such a search.