González Labra Hunter (1957) proposes that in order to make an inference

TRANSITIVE REASONING It is necessary for the premises to contain the same relationship.
and that the middle term is the predicate of the first premise and the
Also called linear syllogism, linear ordering problem or subject of the second. Ex: Luis is older than Juan. Juan is older than
three-term series problem Peter.
Transitive reasoning. They study the inferences that When the argument does not contain the same relationship or not
they depend on the relationships of transitivity. They use a syllogism it is expressed in a natural order operations must be applied
consisting of two premises in which 3 are related of conversion and rearrangement of premises.
terms based on a transitive property and a Hunter suggested that the application of both operations yielded
conclusion that establishes the relationship between the 2 terms no place for the most difficult problems and the conversion operation
adjacent. E.g.: Luis is older than Juan. Juan is older than it was easier than the rearrangement.
Pedro. Consequently, Luis is older than Pedro. Levels of difficulty
Transitivity relation. It is defined as the property of 1) For the problems deltpo 'A>B, B>C' and 'C<B, B<A' it is not necessary
any scale or dimension according to which it apply no operation and they are the easiest.
they compare and arrange objects. In the problems 'A>B, C<B' and 'C<B, A>B' it is necessary to convert
The experimental task consists of presenting the two premises. the relationship of the second premise and they are more difficult than the
of the syllogism and asking the subject to answer a question previous.
about the relationship between 'A' and 'C' or that evaluates the validity of a 3) The third level of difficulty was presented by the problems 'B<A,'
conclusion. C<B” and “B>C, A>B” since they require a reordering of the
The transitive syllogism A > B > C has 8 basic structures. second premise and this is a more difficult operation than
(1.A>B, B>C2.A>B, C>B, etc.). If relationships are introduced the conversion.
Luis is not as small as Juan. Juan is not as 4) Finally, the most difficult problems “B<A, B>C” and “B>C, B<A”
small as Pedro. Consequently, Luis is not as since they require to convert the relationship of the second premise and
small like Pedro) there would be 32 pairs of premises. then reorder it.
Indeterminate syllogisms have also been used in which
the two terms of the series are situated towards the same However, the experimental results did not support all
extreme of the relationship regarding the average, not the predictions of the operational model.
a valid conclusion about the relationship can be reached It was found that in transitive syllogisms the effect occurred.
between both. Eg: B>A AND B>C. It can be said that B is greater of the figure.
that A and C, but no, what is the relationship between these last ones. Hunter anticipates that the level of difficulty of the syllogisms
it was related to the process of integrating information in
Representation formats to solve syllogisms. function deltpo of figure u order of the terms.
The operational model.
It emphasizes the operational aspects involved in the
solution.
Models based on mental images. The construction of these spatial arrangements seems
adjust to cultural preferences (writing and reading). The
It is based on the elaboration and interpretation of a the anchoring principle of the extremes seems to only influence the
Image of the content of the premises and the difficulty depends on the topic second premise.
of relational terms used in the premises.
The difficulty of transitive syllogisms lies in the linguistic model
related to the degree of difficulty encountered in the preparation Clark (1969) proposes that transitive inference is based on
de la representación espacial correspondiente a la serie de tres propositional representations, and that the difficulty of the problems
terms. It is due to linguistic factors that influence comprehension.
Underlying the creation of images: Principle of the primacy of functional relationships.
Principle of directional preference. It is based on the It argues that the relationships between the subject, verb, or object
observation that subjects prefer to construct orders They are stored and retrieved directly with priority over others.
spatial in certain directions. The relationships information. For example: A is better than B, B is better than C, so
they are also presented in these spatial axes. compressed representation as A is better, B is
A transitive syllogism will be easier if the first premise better and C is just good. In the construction of the
contains in the first place the term that is located highest or propositional representation, the information of the predicate is
more to the left of the spatial axes. For example: in a relationship prioritized comparative information and in this case it
better-worse, it is preferred that better is at the far end more loses the middle ground, making the problem more
high, and worse at the lowest. difficult since it is necessary to recover the mean term to carry out
It is also easier to represent a syllogism in which the inference between the premises. The negative premises (I don't know
presents the term that is located higher up or further to the if all) have in their compressed representation the term
left in the first premise and the opposite term of the axis medium. For example: A is not as bad as B, B is not as bad as C,
special in the second premise. For example: A is better than B, B is its compressed representation is: B is worse, C is worse, B is
better than C, it is easier than B is better than C, A is better than less bad, therefore, C is worse than A.
B. Principle of lexical marking. It establishes that some adjectives
Anchoring principle of the extremes. It postulates that the bipolar are asymmetric, so that some adjectives are
spatial construction will be easier when stated in neutral with respect to the magnitude of the scale. While
first place one of the ends of the spatial axes. Of others assume one of the extremes of the scale. Eg: A is
this way, the easiest premises will be those that better than B, (unmarked adjective) expresses the different degree
proceed from one of the extreme terms of the series to in what A and B compare. Ex2: A is worse than B (adjective)
mean term. marked) causes the terms to be placed at one end of the
According to these two principles, subjects construct a scale because it is assumed that both are bad, when in
mental axis marked by directional preference and in which it In reality, they could be good and only one is worse than the other.
the three terms are placed, obtaining the solution by means of the compare them, being a premise harder to process.
reading of this spatial representation. Principle of congruence. It argues that the recovery of
the information is easier if the representation of the
 functional relationships is congruent with the question they start with a spatial representation and then linguistic
formulated. vice versa.
This principle postulates that syllogisms will be easier. The instructions or the type of presentation of the problems
when this question is asked in the same direction. E.g. A They influence the representation that is adopted. If the question is before
A is better than B, B is better than C, it's easier when you that the premises use the linguistic strategy, if it is after
question What is the best? Instead of What is the worst? spatial. There are also subjects who use different strategies to
This principle relates to the type of search that different problems.
it is done in memory and with the difficulty imposed by the
storage of information. Theory of mental models.
The previous principles refer to the process of understanding It focuses on the analysis of the inference process,
the premises. regardless of the type of representation. The construction of
a mental model of the premises reflects the structure of the
There is a confrontation between the image models. spatial disposition and this structure must be identified
mental and linguistic and is more evident in the premises necessarily with a concrete image. The subjects construct a
negatives than in the affirmatives. mental model of the situation described by the premises based on
The equivalence between affirmative and negative premises his knowledge of the meaning of relational terms.
It may not exist. For example: A is not as bad as B can be. The central idea of building a mental model is
to be interpreted (to equate) as A is better than B, BUT what represents the spatial arrangement of the content of the
also since B is worse than A, there would not be a premises and these mental models are combined to arrive at a
same directionality. inference about the relationships between the two unrelated terms
explicitly in the premises.
Sternberg's mixed model (1980) He disagrees with the propositional representation of
Conciliatory model that brings together the contribution of the aspects the linguistic models and defends an integrated representation of
both linguistic and spatial in the explanation of reasoning the information based on the construction of mental models.
with series of 3 terms. The theory predicts that the difficulty of the problems
In this model, the processing of linguistic information it will depend on the number of mental models that can be constructed
from the premises precedes the spatial. from the premises. In the problems of 3-term series not
This model integrates the aspects of the linguistic model. there is a valid conclusion in the problems that give rise to more than one
related to the adjectives marked in the coding stage and mental model, problem that is resolved in the sequences of 5 terms.
the construction of the spatial disposition in which the terms are According to the results, the number of mental models
they order in the model's non-preferred direction of the image. and not the number of rules, determine the difficulty of the problems.
Both representations are used, but at different stages. In the theory of mental models, the overload of the
of the problem solving process. working memory is the main source of error and as it
Subjects develop different strategies as they the increase in the number of mental models also increases the
they gain experience in solving transitive syllogisms. E.g.: difficulty of the problems.