Reasoning as Memory

There is a growing acknowledgement of the importance of integrating the study of reasoning with other areas of cognitive psychology. The purpose of this volume is to examine the extent to which we can further our understanding of reasoning by integrating findings, theories and paradigms in the field of memory.

Reasoning as Memory consists of nine chapters that make explicit links between basic memory process, and reasoning and decision-making. The contributors address a number of key topics including:

• the relationship between semantic memory and reasoning
• the role of expert memory in reasoning
• recognition memory and induction
• working memory and reasoning
• metamemory in reasoning.

In addition, the chapters provide broad coverage of the field of thinking, and invite the intriguing question of how much there is left to explain in the field of reasoning when one has extracted the variance due to memory.

This book will be of great interest to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers interested in reasoning or decision making, and to researchers interested in the role played in cognition by a variety of memory processes.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Working memory capacity and reasoning
Chapter 2 Relational processing in reasoning: The role of working memory
Chapter 3 Conditional reasoning and semantic memory retrieval
Chapter 4 A memory-theoretic account of hypothesis generation and judgment and decision making
Chapter 5 Gist memory in reasoning and decision making: Age, experience and expertise
Chapter 6 From tool to theory: What recognition memory reveals about inductive reasoning
Chapter 7 Knowledge structures involved in episodic future thinking
Chapter 8 Intuition: Introducing affect into cognition
Chapter 9 Meta-reasoning: What can we learn from meta-memory?