{"pk":32278,"title":"How to Make the Impossible Seem Possible","subtitle":null,"abstract":"The mental model theory postulates that reasoners build models of the situations described in premises. A conclusion is possible if it occurs in at least one model; and it is impossible if it occurs in no models. According to the theory, reasoners can cope with what is true, but not with what is false. A computer implementation predicted that certain inferences should yield cognitive illusions, i.e. they have conclusions that should seem highly plausible but that are in reality gross errors. Experiment 1 showed that, as predicted, participants erroneously inferred that impossible situations were possible, and that possible situations were impossible, but they performed well with control problems. Experiment 2 replicated these results, using the same premises for both the illusory and the control inferences: the participants were susceptible both to illusions of possibility and to illusions of impossibility, but they coped with the control problems.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"Long Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4qw7r8p0","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Philip","middle_name":"N.","last_name":"Johnson-Laird","name_suffix":"","institution":"Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, University of Michigan","department":""},{"first_name":"Yevgeniya","middle_name":"","last_name":"Goldvarg","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Southern California","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"1997-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/32278/galley/23343/download/"}]}