Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences · Mental Models

Mental Models

Item

Title: Mental Models
Author: Byrne, Ruth M. J.
Research Area: Cognition and Emotions
Topic: Information Processing
Abstract: People construct small‐scale models of reality to understand the world and descriptions of it. Their iconic mental representations capture structural aspects of the elements simulated. They think about alternative possibilities that are consistent with assertions that contain logical connectives such as “if” and “or,” quantifiers such as “all” or “some,” and relational terms such as “in front of” or “before.” They reason and make decisions by combining mental models, and they search for counterexamples to their conclusions. People construct mental models when they make deductive inferences and when they make inferences about probability and risk, as well as when they form concepts, solve problems, make moral judgments, or create alternatives to reality in their counterfactual thoughts.
Related Essays: Models of Revealed Preference (Economics), Abi Adams and Ian Crawford; Theory of Mind and Behavior (Psychology), Amanda C. Brandone; Stereotype Content (Sociology), Beatrice H. Capestany and Lasana T. Harris; Heuristic Decision Making (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J. D'Amico; Political Ideologies (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J. D'Amico; Spatial Attention (Psychology), Kyle R. Cave; Neoliberalism (Sociology), Miguel Angel Centeno and Joseph N. Cohen; Culture and Cognition (Sociology), Karen A. Cerulo; Delusions (Psychology), Max Coltheart; Misinformation and How to Correct It (Psychology), John Cook et al.; Resilience (Psychology), Erica D. Diminich and George A. Bonanno; Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping (Psychology), Susan T. Fiske and Cydney H. Dupree; Controlling the Influence of Stereotypes on One's Thoughts (Psychology), Patrick S. Forscher and Patricia G. Devine; Language and Thought (Psychology), Susan Goldin‐Meadow; Setting One's Mind on Action: Planning Out Goal Striving in Advance (Psychology), Peter M. Gollwitzer; Cultural Heritage, Patrimony, and Repatriation (Anthropology), Richard Handler; Behavioral Economics (Sociology), Guy Hochman and Dan Ariely; Mental Imagery in Psychological Disorders (Psychology), Emily A. Holmes et al.; Herd Behavior (Psychology), Tatsuya Kameda and Reid Hastie; Cultural Neuroscience: Connecting Culture, Brain, and Genes (Psychology), Shinobu Kitayama and Sarah Huff; Niche Construction: Implications for Human Sciences (Anthropology), Kevin N. Laland and Michael O'Brien; Attitude: Construction versus Disposition (Psychology), Charles G. Lord; Two‐Systems View of Children's Theory‐of‐Mind Understanding (Psychology), Jason Low; Against Game Theory (Political Science), Gale M. Lucas et al.; Visualizing Globalization (Sociology), Matthew C. Mahutga and Robert Nash‐Parker; Concepts and Semantic Memory (Psychology), Barbara C. Malt; Queer Theory (Anthropology), Martin F. Manalansan; Mysticism (Sociology), Barry Markovsky and Jake Frederick; Emerging Trends in Culture and Concepts (Psychology), Bethany Ojalehto and Douglas Medin; Neural and Cognitive Plasticity (Psychology), Eduardo Mercado III; Deterrence (Sociology), Robert Apel and Daniel S. Nagin; Culture as Situated Cognition (Psychology), Daphna Oyserman; Embodied Knowledge (Psychology), Diane Pecher and René Zeelenberg; Social Classification (Sociology), Elizabeth G. Pontikes; The Sociology of Religious Experience (Sociology), Douglas Porpora; Cognitive Bias Modification in Mental (Psychology), Meg M. Reuland et al.; Born This Way: Thinking Sociologically about Essentialism (Sociology), Kristen Schilt; Stereotype Threat (Psychology), Toni Schmader and William M. Hall; The Institutional Logics Perspective (Sociology), Patricia H. Thornton et al.; Theory of Mind (Psychology), Henry Wellman
Identifier: etrds0217
extracted text: Mental Models
RUTH M. J. BYRNE

Abstract
People construct small-scale models of reality to understand the world and descriptions of it. Their iconic mental representations capture structural aspects of the elements simulated. They think about alternative possibilities that are consistent with
assertions that contain logical connectives such as “if” and “or,” quantifiers such as
“all” or “some,” and relational terms such as “in front of” or “before.” They reason
and make decisions by combining mental models, and they search for counterexamples to their conclusions. People construct mental models when they make deductive
inferences and when they make inferences about probability and risk, as well as when
they form concepts, solve problems, make moral judgments, or create alternatives to
reality in their counterfactual thoughts.

INTRODUCTION
Mental models are mental representations in the mind of real or imagined
states of affairs (Johnson-Laird, 1983). Mental models are “small-scale
models” of reality (Craik, 1943); they underlie visual images and they may
be similar to “pictures” (Wittgenstein, 1922); and they can also be “iconic”
representations that capture structural aspects of the elements simulated
(Johnson-Laird, 2006). Hence, mental models are akin to architects’ models
or physicists’ diagrams.
The theory of mental models has been experimentally tested and computationally simulated to explain how people understand and reason deductively
with assertions that contain propositional connectives such as “if,” “or,” and
“not,” as well as syllogisms based on quantifiers such as “all” or “some”
and inferences based on relational terms such as “in front of” or “before”
(Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991). It explains how people detect inconsistencies
and construct explanations; it has led to the discovery of a new set of illusory
inferences; and it has been extended to explain how people make inferences
about probability and risk. It accounts for how people form concepts, solve
problems, make moral judgments, and create alternatives to reality in their
counterfactual thoughts (Byrne, 2005; Johnson-Laird, 2006).
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

2

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
When people understand an assertion about the relation of objects, such as
“the knife is on the right of the fork, and the napkin is on the left of the knife,”
they construct a mental model of the spatial arrangement of the objects,
Napkin

Fork

Knife

(Byrne & Johnson-Laird, 1989; Jahn, Knauff, & Johnson-Laird, 2007). They
construct similar mental models for many other sorts of relations (Goodwin
& Johnson-Laird, 2005, 2008), including temporal relations (Schaeken,
Johnson-Laird, & d’Ydewalle, 1996). Likewise, when they understand a
quantified assertion such as “All of the napkins are blue,” they envisage
napkins that are blue (and they may also consider that there could be blue
things that are not napkins):
napkin

blue

napkin

blue

napkin

blue
blue

Each row in the diagram denotes a representation of the properties of an
individual object (Johnson-Laird & Bara, 1984; Khemlani & Johnson-Laird,
2012). When they understand a conditional assertion “if there’s a lily in the
vase then there’s a rose,” they initially think about a single possibility corresponding to the way the world would be if the assertion were true, “There is
a lily in the vase and there is a rose” (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 2002):
lily

rose

Their initial mental model contains some information that is represented
explicitly, and other information that is implicit but can be “fleshed out” to
be explicit if need be (Johnson-Laird, Byrne, & Schaeken, 1992; Khemlani,
Orenes, & Johnson-Laird, 2012).
PRINCIPLES OF PARSIMONY AND TRUTH
The possibilities people think about at the outset are guided by a principle of
parsimony because of the limitations of human working memory (Barrouillet, Gauffroy, & Lecas, 2008; Johnson-Laird et al., 1992). Fast heuristic processes drive the construction of initial mental representations (Johnson-Laird,
1983). For example, the initial interpretation of the conditional differs from a

Mental Models

3

simple conjunction because people make a “mental note” that there may be
alternative possibilities, which they have yet to think about:
lily

rose

…

Alternative possibilities are captured in the diagram by separate lines, and
the ellipsis denotes an implicit model (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991).
People can also engage deliberative analytic processes to think about the
alternative possibilities, if need be. The possibilities they consider are guided
by a principle of truth and so they do not tend to imagine the false possibilities ruled out by an assertion. For example, they do not think about the
false possibility, “there is a lily in the vase and there is no rose” (Espino,
Santamaria, & Byrne, 2009; Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 2002). They can imagine various alternative possibilities that are consistent with an assertion. For
example, for the assertion, “the knife is on the right of the fork, and the napkin
is on the left of the knife,” they can entertain alternative models:
Napkin
Fork

Fork

Knife

Napkin

Knife

Similarly for the conditional, “if there’s a lily in the vase then there’s a rose,”
they can think about alternative true possibilities, “There is a lily in the vase
and there is a rose,” and “There is no lily and there is no rose”:
Lily

Rose

No lily

No rose

The mental representations can contain symbols to represent negation
(Johnson-Laird et al., 1992). Considering alternative possibilities is an
important step in the development of reasoning (Gauffroy & Barrouillet,
2011), and the alternative possibility people envisage most readily depends
on task demands (Jahn et al., 2007).
DEDUCTIVE REASONING
People make inferences by constructing and combining mental models. They
can reach conclusions that are possibly true—consistent with some of their
models; or conclusions that are necessarily true—consistent with all of their
models (Bell & Johnson-Laird, 1998), and they can detect inconsistencies
(Johnson-Laird, Legrenzi, Girotto, & Legrenzi, 2000; Johnson-Laird, Lotstein,
& Byrne, 2012). They reject a conclusion as a valid deduction if they find a

4

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

counterexample, that is, a possibility in which the premises hold, but the
conclusion does not (Johnson-Laird & Hasson, 2003). For example, if they
understand the assertion “the knife is on the right of the fork, and the napkin
is on the left of the knife” by thinking about the possibility:
Napkin

Fork

Knife

they conclude “the fork is on the right of the napkin.” But they reject the
conclusion if they also construct the alternative possibility:
Fork

Napkin

Knife

Some inferences are guided by implicit heuristic processes, such as an inspection of an initial possibility, for example, the modus ponens inference: “if there
is a lily then there is a rose. There is a lily. Therefore, there is a rose.” It can
be made on the basis of the initial possibility, “there is a lily and there is a
rose” (Reverberi, Pischedda, Burigo, & Cherubini, 2012). Other inferences
are guided by effortful deliberative processes, such as the systematic construction and combination of alternative possibilities, for example, the modus
tollens inference “if there is a lily then there is a rose. There is no rose. Therefore there is no lily.” Many reasoners say that nothing follows (Johnson-Laird
& Byrne, 1991). However, if they “flesh out” their models to be more explicit,
they can think about an alternative true possibility for the conditional: “there
is no lily and there is no rose” and they can identify a shared common element. The more models that reasoners must entertain, the more difficult it is
to reason correctly (Johnson-Laird et al., 1992). For example, the modus tollens
inference is made more readily from a biconditional relation (which requires
two possibilities to be considered) compared to a conditional relation (which
requires three possibilities).
Computer simulations of the theory have tested its coherence in distinct
domains such as propositional inference (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991). A
recent computer program provides a unified simulation of syllogistic, propositional, relational, and probabilistic inferences (see the mReasoner program
at http://mentalmodels.princeton.edu/models/).
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
The model theory of reasoning has been extended to explain how people
think and reason in different domains. Mental models represent the intension or meaning of an assertion as well as its extension or the situations to
which it refers, and extensional probabilities can be calculated over mental
models to account for probabilistic inference and risk judgments (Khemlani,
Lotstein, & Johnson-Laird, 2012; McCloy, Byrne, & Johnson-Laird, 2010).

Mental Models

5

The nature of the possibilities that people consider explains how they form
concepts (Goodwin & Johnson-Laird, 2013) and solve insight problems (Lee
& Johnson-Laird, 2013; Murray & Byrne, 2013). It has led to the discovery of a
new set of illusory inferences (Johnson-Laird & Savary, 1999), and it explains
how people construct explanations (Khemlani & Johnson-Laird, 2012) and
make moral judgments (Bucciarelli, Khemlani, & Johnson-Laird, 2008).
Three examples illustrate recent advances: how semantic and pragmatic
factors affect the mental models that people construct, the brain regions
implicated in searching for counterexamples, and the use of models in
counterfactual reasoning.
MODULATION OF MODELS BY KNOWLEDGE
Content and context modulate the possibilities that people consider
(Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 2002; Quelhas, Johnson-Laird, & Juhos, 2010). For
example, people judge a “strong” causal relation, “if the gong is hit then it
makes a sound” to be consistent with two possibilities “the gong is hit and
it makes a sound” and “the gong is not hit and it does not make a sound,”
akin to a “bi-conditional” relation (De Neys, Schaeken, & d’Ydewalle, 2005a;
Goldvarg & Johnson-Laird, 2001). In contrast, they judge a “weak” cause,
“if the fruit is ripe then it falls from the tree” to be consistent with three
possibilities, “the fruit is ripe and it falls from the tree,” “the fruit is not ripe
and it does not fall from the tree,” and crucially, “the fruit is not ripe and
it falls from the tree,” akin to a “conditional” relation. People think about
the other causes that can also bring about the effect, and they retrieve an
alternative cause, for example, “the fruit is not ripe and it falls from the tree,
because it is a windy day” (De Neys, Schaeken, & d’Ydewalle, 2003; Frosch
& Johnson-Laird, 2011).
In contrast, they judge an “enabling” causal relation (or an “allowing”
relation), “If the product is advertised, then sales increase,” to be consistent
with a different set of possibilities, “the product is advertised and sales
increase,” “the product is not advertised and sales do not increase,” and
crucially, “the product is advertised and sales do not increase.” They think
about the other conditions that must also be present to bring about the
effect, and they retrieve a disabling condition, “the product is advertised
and sales do not increase, because the ads were not well-placed.” They
list these different possibilities when they are given the different sorts of
causes (Goldvarg & Johnson-Laird, 2001) and they are “primed” to read
these possibilities fast (Frosch & Byrne, 2012). On the mental model theory,
inferences are never valid in virtue of their form alone, but take account
of content and context (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 2002). Consider the causal
claim that overeating causes indigestion. Granted its truth, if it was observed

6

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

that Phil did not have indigestion, it could be inferred that he had not
overeaten. But suppose that Phil had made an intervention: he took a pill
that prevented indigestion. It would no longer be inferred from his lack
of indigestion that he had not eaten too much. His intervention initiates a
new causal chain that negates the effects of overeating. An intervention is
sometimes said to have its own special logic (Sloman & Lagnado, 2005), but
no special logic is required, just the ability to understand the premises:
Overeating causes indigestion.
Taking an indigestion pill prevents indigestion.
and to realize, as in the case of modulation, that the second premise takes
precedence over the first (Frosch & Johnson-Laird, 2011; Johnson-Laird,
2006).
COUNTEREXAMPLES
Counterexamples suppress the inferences people make, for example, when
they retrieve alternatives or disablers (Byrne, 1989a, 1989b; Byrne, Espino,
& Santamaria, 1999). When people retrieve a disabler, for example, “the
ads were not well placed” it suppresses their tendency to make the modus
ponens inference, for example, “If the product is advertised, then sales
increase. The product was advertised. Therefore, sales increased” (Byrne,
1989a; Schroyens, Schaeken, & Handley, 2003; Verschueren, Schaeken, &
d’Ydewalle, 2005). Their ability to retrieve counterexamples depends on
their working memory: it can be interrupted by secondary tasks that compete for working memory resources, and individuals with higher working
memory capacity are better at retrieving, and at inhibiting, counterexamples
(De Neys, 2011; De Neys, Schaeken, & d’Ydewalle, 2005b). Counterexamples
affect the inferences people make when they are asked whether a conclusion
logically follows from the premises, but not when they calculate the likelihood of the conclusion (Geiger & Oberauer, 2007; Markovits, Lortie Forgues,
& Brunet, 2010).
There is greater activation in some regions of the brain when people make
logical inferences that require counterexamples. When they construct a mental model during premise processing, for example, “V is to the left of X,” there
is activation primarily in the occipito-temporal structures; when they combine mental models, during the integration of premises, for example, “V is
to the left of X, X is to the left of Z,” there is activation primarily in the anterior prefrontal cortex; and when people search for counterexamples during
the validation phase, for example, “V is to the left of X, X is to the left of Z,
is V to the left of Z?,” there is activation primarily in the posterior parietal

Mental Models

7

and prefrontal cortex (Fangmeier, Knauff, Ruff, & Sloutsky, 2006). Inferences
that require counterexamples activate the right frontal pole in the prefrontal
cortex more than inferences that do not require counterexamples (Kroger,
Nystrom, Cohen, & Johnson-Laird, 2008).
COUNTERFACTUAL REASONING
Models can contain information to represent epistemic elements of beliefs,
such as their counterfactuality (Byrne, 2005, 2007). Counterfactual thoughts,
“if only I had gone home by my usual route I wouldn’t have had an accident” are pervasive in everyday thinking (Dixon & Byrne, 2011; Kahneman
& Tversky, 1982; McEleney & Byrne, 2006). When people read a counterfactual conditional “if there had been a lily in the vase there would have been a rose”
they think about two possibilities from the outset (Byrne & Tasso, 1999). They
consider the conjecture: “there was a lily and there was a rose” and also the
presupposed facts: “there was no lily and there was no rose,” and they keep
track of the epistemic status of one as an imagined possibility and the other
as a factual possibility (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991). They are primed to
read a negative conjunction “there was no lily and there was no rose” faster
when they first read a counterfactual conditional compared to when they first
read an indicative conditional; they read quickly the affirmative conjunction
“there was a lily and there was a rose” whether they are primed by either the
counterfactual or the indicative conditional (De Vega, Urrutia, & Riffo, 2007;
Santamaria, Espino, & Byrne, 2005). Studies that track where participants’
eyes focus when they read counterfactuals show that real-world violations,
for example, “owners could feed their cats carrots” are not neutralized by
a counterfactual context, for example, “if cats were vegetarians,” indicating
that people keep in mind both models (Ferguson & Stanford, 2007). People
simulate the counterfactual situation as much as the factual situation, so that
physical actions that compete with the counterfactual action delay processing just as much as ones that compete with the factual action (De Vega &
Urrutia, 2011).
People judge that someone who utters the counterfactual meant to convey “there was no lily” and “there was no rose” (Thompson & Byrne, 2002),
and they mistakenly believe they were told so when they are given a surprise memory task (Fillenbaum, 1974). The negative inferences such as modus
tollens are made more readily from a counterfactual compared to an indicative conditional, whereas the affirmative inferences such as modus ponens are
made with equal frequency (Byrne & Tasso, 1999; Quelhas & Byrne, 2003).
The inferences people make from counterfactuals are influenced by linguistic
form, for example, “even if” and “only if” (Egan, Garcia-Madruga, & Byrne,
2009; Moreno-Rios, Garcia-Madruga, & Byrne, 2008). Counterfactual threats,

8

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

for example, “if you had hit your brother I would have grounded you” are
interpreted as threatening for the future, whereas counterfactual promises “if
you had mown the grass I would have given you 10 euro” are not (Egan &
Byrne, 2012).
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Extensions of the model theory to explain different kinds of thinking are
an important development. For example, a recent extension of the theory
to account for moral judgments distinguishes between conscious deliberative reasoning about moral matters and unconscious intuitive moral judgments (Bucciarelli et al., 2008). Other extensions of the theory, for example,
to explain problem solving or the nature of explanations, clarify the assumptions that lead people to construct or eliminate possibilities (e.g., Khemlani
& Johnson-Laird, 2012; Lee & Johnson-Laird, 2012).
The model theory is an alternative to views based on probability (Evans
& Over, 2004; Oaksford & Chater, 2007) or mental inference rules, either
abstract or content-sensitive (Braine & O’Brien, 1998; Cheng & Holyoak,
1985; Cosmides, Tooby, Fiddick, & Bryant, 2005; Rips, 1994). Comparisons
of the predictions of the alternative theories remain important, for example,
a recent meta-analysis systematically compares seven alternative theories
of syllogistic inference against the existing empirical evidence (Khemlani &
Johnson-Laird, 2012).

REFERENCES
Barrouillet, P., Gauffroy, C., & Lecas, J. F. (2008). Mental models and the suppositional
account of conditionals. Psychological Review, 115(3), 760–771.
Bell, V., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1998). A model theory of modal reasoning. Cognitive
Science, 22, 25–51.
Braine, M. D. S., & O’Brien, D. P. (Eds.) (1998). Mental logic. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
Bucciarelli, M., Khemlani, S., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2008). The psychology of moral
reasoning. Judgment and Decision Making, 3(2), 121–139.
Byrne, R. M. J. (1989a). Suppressing valid inferences with conditionals. Cognition, 31,
61–83.
Byrne, R. M. J. (1989b). Everyday reasoning with conditional sequences. Quarterly
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 41A, 141–166.
Byrne, R. M. J. (2005). The rational imagination: How people create alternatives to reality.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Byrne, R. M. J. (2007). Precis of the rational imagination: How people create alternatives to reality. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30(2007), 439–480.

Mental Models

9

Byrne, R. M. J., Espino, O., & Santamaria, C. (1999). Counterexamples and the suppression of inferences. Journal of Memory and Language, 40, 347–373.
Byrne, R. M. J., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1989). Spatial reasoning. Journal of Memory
and Language, 28, 564–575.
Byrne, R. M. J., & Tasso, A. (1999). Deductive reasoning with factual, possible, and
counterfactual conditionals. Memory & Cognition, 27, 726–740.
Cheng, P. W., & Holyoak, K. J. (1985). Pragmatic reasoning schemas. Cognitive Psychology, 17, 391–416.
Cosmides, L., Tooby, J., Fiddick, L., & Bryant, G. (2005). Detecting cheaters. Trends in
Cognitive Sciences, 9, 505–506.
Craik, K. (1943). The nature of explanation. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
De Neys, W. (2011). Counterexample retrieval and inhibition during conditional reasoning: Direct evidence from memory probing. In M. Oaksford & N. Chater (Eds.),
Cognition and conditionals (pp. 197–206). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
De Neys, W., Schaeken, W., & d’Ydewalle, G. (2003). Inference suppression and
semantic memory retrieval: Every counterexample counts. Memory and Cognition,
31, 581–595.
De Neys, W., Schaeken, W., & d’Ydewalle, G. (2005a). Working memory and counterexample retrieval for causal conditionals. Thinking and Reasoning, 11, 123–150.
De Neys, W., Schaeken, W., & d’Ydewalle, G. (2005b). Working memory and everyday conditional reasoning: Retrieval and inhibition of stored counterexamples.
Thinking and Reasoning, 11, 349–381.
De Vega, M., & Urrutia, M. (2011). Counterfactual sentences activate embodied meaning: An action sentence compatibility effect study. Journal of Cognitive Psychology,
23, 962–973.
De Vega, M., Urrutia, M., & Riffo, B. (2007). Canceling updating in the comprehension
of counterfactuals embedded in narratives. Memory & Cognition, 35(6), 1410–1421.
Dixon, J., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2011). Counterfactual thinking about exceptional actions.
Memory & Cognition, 39(7), 1317–1331.
Egan, S., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2012). Inferences from counterfactual threats and
promises. Experimental Psychology, 59(4), 227–235.
Egan, S., Garcia-Madruga, J., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2009). Indicative and counterfactual
‘only if’ conditionals. Acta Psychologica, 132(3), 240–249.
Espino, O., Santamaria, C., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2009). People think about what is true
for conditionals, not what is false: Only true possibilities prime the comprehension
of ‘if’. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(6), 1072–1078.
Evans, J. S. B. T., & Over, D. (2004). If . Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Fangmeier, T., Knauff, M., Ruff, C. C., & Sloutsky, V. (2006). The neural correlates of
logical thinking: An event-related fMRI study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18,
320–334.
Ferguson, H., & Sanford, A. (2007). Anomalies in real and counterfactual worlds: An
eye-movement investigation. Journal of Memory and Language, 58(2008), 609–626.
Fillenbaum, S. (1974). Information amplified: Memory for counterfactual conditionals. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 102(1), 44–49.

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Frosch, C. A., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2011). Is everyday causation deterministic or
probabilistic? Acta Psychologica, 137(3), 280–291.
Frosch, C., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2012). Causal conditionals and counterfactuals. Acta
Psychologica, 141(1), 54–66.
Gauffroy, C., & Barrouillet, P. (2011). The primacy of thinking about possibilities in
the development of reasoning. Developmental Psychology, 47, 1000–1011.
Geiger, S. M., & Oberauer, K. (2007). Reasoning with conditionals: Does every counterexample count? It’s frequency that counts. Memory & Cognition, 35, 2060–2074.
Goldvarg, E., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2001). Naive causality: A mental model theory
of causal meaning and reasoning. Cognitive Science, 25, 565–610.
Goodwin, G. P., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2005). Reasoning about relations. Psychological Review, 112, 468–493.
Goodwin, G. P., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2008). Transitive and pseudo-transitive inferences. Cognition, 108, 320–352.
Goodwin, G. P., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2013). The acquisition of Boolean concepts.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17, 128–133.
Jahn, G., Knauff, M., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2007). Preferred mental models in reasoning about spatial relations. Memory & Cognition, 35(8), 2075–2087.
Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1983). Mental models. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2006). How we reason. Oxford, England: Oxford University
Press.
Johnson-Laird, P. N., & Bara, B. G. (1984). Syllogistic inference. Cognition, 16(1), 1–61.
Johnson-Laird, P. N., & Savary, F. (1999). Illusory inferences: A novel class of erroneous deductions. Cognition, 71(3), 191–229.
Johnson-Laird, P. N., & Byrne, R. M. J. (1991). Deduction. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Johnson-Laird, P. N., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2002). Conditionals: A theory of meaning,
pragmatics, and inference. Psychological Review, 109, 646–678.
Johnson-Laird, P. N., Byrne, R. M. J., & Schaeken, W. (1992). Propositional reasoning
by model. Psychological Review, 99, 418–439.
Johnson-Laird, P. N., & Hasson, U. (2003). Counterexamples in sentential reasoning.
Memory & Cognition, 31, 1105–1113.
Johnson-Laird, P. N., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, P., & Legrenzi, M. S. (2000). Illusions in
reasoning about consistency. Science, 288, 531–532.
Johnson-Laird, P. N., Lotstein, M., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2012). The consistency of disjunctive assertions. Memory and Cognition, 40, 769–778.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). The simulation heuristic. In D. Kahneman, P.
Slovic & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (pp.
201–208). New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Khemlani, S., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2012). Theories of the syllogism: A metaanalysis. Psychological Bulletin, 138(3), 427–457.
Khemlani, S., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2012). Hidden conflicts: Explanations make
inconsistencies harder to detect. Acta Psychologica, 139, 486–491.
Khemlani, S., Lotstein, M., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2012). The probability of unique
events. PLos ONE, 7, 1–9.

Mental Models

11

Khemlani, S., Orenes, I., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2012). Negation: A theory of its
meaning, representation and use. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 24(5), 541–559.
Kroger, J. K., Nystrom, L. E., Cohen, J. D., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2008). Distinct
neural substrates for deductive and mathematical processing. Brain Research, 1243,
86–103.
Lee, L., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2013). Strategic changes in problem solving. Journal
of Cognitive Psychology, 25(2), 165–173.
Markovits, H., Lortie Forgues, H., & Brunet, M.-L. (2010). Conditional reasoning,
frequency of counterexamples, and the effect of response modality. Memory & Cognition, 38, 485–492.
McCloy, R. A., Byrne, R. M. J., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2010). Understanding cumulative risk. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63, 499–515.
McEleney, A., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2006). Spontaneous causal and counterfactual
thoughts. Thinking and Reasoning, 12, 235–255.
Moreno-Rios, S., Garcia-Madruga, J., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2008). Semifactual ‘even if’
reasoning. Acta Psychologica, 128, 197–209.
Murray, M. A., & Byrne, R. M. (2013). Cognitive change in insight problem solving:
Initial model errors and counterexamples. Journal of Cognitive Psychology.
Oaksford, M., & Chater, N. (2007). Bayesian rationality: The probabilistic approach to
human reasoning. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Quelhas, A. C., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2003). Reasoning with deontic and counterfactual
conditionals. Thinking and Reasoning, 9, 43–66.
Quelhas, A. C., Johnson-Laird, P. N., & Juhos, C. (2010). The modulation of conditional assertions and its effects on reasoning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 63(9), 1716–1739.
Reverberi, C., Pischedda, D., Burigo, M., & Cherubini, P. (2012). Deduction without
awareness. Acta Psychologica, 139, 244–256.
Rips, L. (1994). The psychology of proof . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Santamaria, C., Espino, O., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2005). Counterfactual and semifactual conditionals prime alternative possibilities. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 1149–1154.
Schaeken, W., Johnson-Laird, P. N., & d’Ydewalle, G. (1996). Mental models and temporal reasoning. Cognition, 60(3), 205–234.
Schroyens, W., Schaeken, W., & Handley, S. (2003). In search of counterexamples:
Deductive rationality in human reasoning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 56(A), 1129–1145.
Sloman, S. A., & Lagnado, D. A. (2005). Do we ‘do’? Cognitive Science, 29, 5–39.
Thompson, V. A., & Byrne, R. M. (2002). Reasoning counterfactually: Making inferences about things that didn’t happen. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,
Memory, and Cognition, 28(6), 1154–1170.
Verschueren, N., Schaeken, W., & d’Ydewalle, G. (2005). Everyday conditional reasoning: A working memory-dependent tradeoff between counterexample and
likelihood use. Memory & Cognition, 33, 107–119.
Wittgenstein, L. (1922). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London, England: Routledge
& Kegan Paul.

12

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

FURTHER READING
Byrne, R. M. J., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2009). ‘If’ and the problems of conditional
reasoning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13, 282–287.
Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2006). How we reason. Oxford, England: Oxford University
Press.

RUTH M. J. BYRNE SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Ruth M. J. Byrne is the professor of cognitive science in the School of Psychology and the Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin, University of
Dublin, Ireland. Her research expertise is in the cognitive science of human
thinking, including experimental and computational investigations of reasoning and imaginative thought. Her books include The Rational Imagination:
How People Create Alternatives to Reality (2005, MIT press) and Deduction coauthored with Phil Johnson-Laird, Princeton University (1991, Erlbaum).
Mental models website: http://mentalmodelsblog.wordpress.com/.
Ruth Byrne’s reasoning and imagination lab page:
http://reasoningandimagination.wordpress.com/.
Phil Johnson-Laird’s mental models and reasoning lab page:
http://mentalmodels.princeton.edu/.
RELATED ESSAYS
Models of Revealed Preference (Economics), Abi Adams and Ian Crawford
Theory of Mind and Behavior (Psychology), Amanda C. Brandone
Stereotype Content (Sociology), Beatrice H. Capestany and Lasana T. Harris
Heuristic Decision Making (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and
Nicholas J. D’Amico
Political Ideologies (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J.
D’Amico
Spatial Attention (Psychology), Kyle R. Cave
Neoliberalism (Sociology), Miguel Angel Centeno and Joseph N. Cohen
Culture and Cognition (Sociology), Karen A. Cerulo
Delusions (Psychology), Max Coltheart
Misinformation and How to Correct It (Psychology), John Cook et al.
Resilience (Psychology), Erica D. Diminich and George A. Bonanno
Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping (Psychology), Susan T. Fiske
and Cydney H. Dupree
Controlling the Influence of Stereotypes on One’s Thoughts (Psychology),
Patrick S. Forscher and Patricia G. Devine
Language and Thought (Psychology), Susan Goldin-Meadow

Mental Models

13

Setting One’s Mind on Action: Planning Out Goal Striving in Advance
(Psychology), Peter M. Gollwitzer
Cultural Heritage, Patrimony, and Repatriation (Anthropology), Richard
Handler
Behavioral Economics (Sociology), Guy Hochman and Dan Ariely
Mental Imagery in Psychological Disorders (Psychology), Emily A. Holmes
et al.
Herd Behavior (Psychology), Tatsuya Kameda and Reid Hastie
Cultural Neuroscience: Connecting Culture, Brain, and Genes (Psychology),
Shinobu Kitayama and Sarah Huff
Niche Construction: Implications for Human Sciences (Anthropology), Kevin
N. Laland and Michael O’Brien
Attitude: Construction versus Disposition (Psychology), Charles G. Lord
Two-Systems View of Children’s Theory-of-Mind Understanding (Psychology), Jason Low
Against Game Theory (Political Science), Gale M. Lucas et al.
Visualizing Globalization (Sociology), Matthew C. Mahutga and Robert
Nash-Parker
Concepts and Semantic Memory (Psychology), Barbara C. Malt
Queer Theory (Anthropology), Martin F. Manalansan
Mysticism (Sociology), Barry Markovsky and Jake Frederick
Emerging Trends in Culture and Concepts (Psychology), Bethany Ojalehto
and Douglas Medin
Neural and Cognitive Plasticity (Psychology), Eduardo Mercado III
Deterrence (Sociology), Robert Apel and Daniel S. Nagin
Culture as Situated Cognition (Psychology), Daphna Oyserman
Embodied Knowledge (Psychology), Diane Pecher and René Zeelenberg
Social Classification (Sociology), Elizabeth G. Pontikes
The Sociology of Religious Experience (Sociology), Douglas Porpora
Cognitive Bias Modification in Mental (Psychology), Meg M. Reuland et al.
Born This Way: Thinking Sociologically about Essentialism (Sociology),
Kristen Schilt
Stereotype Threat (Psychology), Toni Schmader and William M. Hall
The Institutional Logics Perspective (Sociology), Patricia H. Thornton et al.
Theory of Mind (Psychology), Henry Wellman