Models of Consistency

Abstract

This article presents a theory of how individuals detect whether descriptions of an entity are consistent or inconsistent. The theory postulates that individuals try to construct a mental model of the entity in which all the propositions are true. If they succeed, they infer that the description is consistent; otherwise, they infer that it is inconsistent. We report three experiments that corroborated the theory. Experiment 1 confirmed that evaluating consistency is easier when an initial model suffices than when reasoners have to find an alternative model. Experiment 2 established the occurrence of illusory inferences about the properties of entities. Experiment 3 showed that the illusions correspond to mental models of the assertions, even when these models are wrong because they fail to represent what is false.