DOMINIC W. MASSARO, editor
University of California, Santa Cruz

Making Connections in Conditional Inference

If
Jonathan St. B. T. Evans and David E. Over. Oxford Cognitive Science Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 190 pp. Paper, $49.50.

In this book Evans and Over provide an overview of the psychology of conditional reasoning„reasoning involving if . . . then„and relate this research to approaches to conditionals in the philosophical logic literature. The conditional is the key term in natural language for understanding human reasoning (see introductory chapters in Braisby & Gellatly, 2004, or Eyesenck & Keane, 2000). Evans and Over are well suited to review these areas. The former has been one of the preeminent psychologists working in this area for the last 30 years. Moreover, the latter is a philosophical logician who has made major contributions to the psychology of reasoning both independently and in collaboration with Evans. The major thrust of the book is the descriptive inadequacy of the computational level theory of conditionals assumed in two influential approaches to human reasoning: mental logic and mental models.