Response bias in relational reasoning

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the possibility that a response bias might be responsible for the typical pattern of responding observed when people reason about artificial relationships, especially set inclusions. Experiment 1 provided strong evidence for the proposed bias, since subjects tended to respond as if an unspecified relationship were symmetrical and increasingly intransitive over inferential distance. However, Experiment 2, using extended syllogisms, showed that not all relationships lead to such responding. Although the majority of the quantified relationships were responded to as if they were symmetrical, most were also regarded as transitive. Thus, the response bias idea, although of some interest, cannot provide a complete explanation of performance on these tasks.