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Do nonlinguistic creatures deploy mental symbols for logical connectives in reasoning?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2023
Abstract
Some nonlinguistic systems of representation display some of the six features of a language-of-thought (LoT) delineated by Quilty-Dunn et al. But they conjecture something stronger: That all six features cooccur homeostatically in nonlinguistic thought. Here I argue that there is no good evidence for nonlinguistic deductive reasoning involving the disjunctive syllogism. Animals and prelinguistic children probably do not make logical inferences.
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Target article
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Author response
The language-of-thought hypothesis as a working hypothesis in cognitive science