JOÃO GUERREIRO (**)
ANA CRISTINA QUELHAS (**)
JUAN A. GARCÍA-MADRUGA (***)
RESUMO
Na presente investigação procurou-se estudar as relações entre a memória de trabalho e o raciocínio dedutivo a partir da perspectiva das diferenças individuais (i.e. saber se o desempenho em tarefas raciocínio pode ser previsto a partir da capacidade de memória de trabalho). Nesse sentido, são usados problemas de raciocínio silogístico que diferem em termos do nível de exigência cognitiva previsto pela teoria dos modelos mentais (e.g. Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991). A memória de trabalho é avaliada, não apenas a partir do clássico teste de amplitude de leitura (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980), ao qual recentemente se tem dirigido críticas, mas também a partir de duas medidas desenvolvidas por García-Madruga e colaboradores (v. García-Madruga et al., 2003) baseadas em problemas anafóricos e analógicos. Nestes dois tipos de tarefas (i.e. memória de trabalho e raciocínio silogístico) participaram 60 estudantes universitários. Os resultados obtidos permitem corroborar as previsões que efectuámos sustentadas na teoria dos modelos mentais, i.e., os indivíduos revelaram maiores dificuldades nos problemas que requerem a construção de um maior número de modelos mentais e os participantes com maior capacidade de memória de trabalho apresentaram também um desempenho superior na tarefa de raciocínio.
]]> Palavras-chave: Memória de trabalho, inferência silogística, Teoria dos Modelos Mentais.
ABSTRACT
The present study envisages the relationship between working memory and syllogistic reasoning from an individual differences perspective (i.e. whether or not the performance on the reasoning task can be predicted from the working memory capacity). A group of syllogistic inference problems were used. These problems differed in terms of cognitive demands (i.e. one vs. two mental models) according to the mental model theory (e.g. Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991). The working memory capacity was measured not only by the classic reading span test but also, as several critics have been recently addressed to functionality of this measure in these kinds of studies, two new measures based on analogical and anaphorical problems were used (cf. García-Madruga et al., 2003). In these two sorts of tasks (i.e. working memory and syllogistic reasoning tasks) participated 60 students. The main suppositions of the mental model theory were confirmed in terms of accuracy, i.e., multiple mental models problems showed more difficulties to participants than single-model ones and participants with higher resources in terms of working memory capacity showed also better performance on the syllogistic reasoning task.
Key words: Working memory, syllogistic inference, Mental Model Theory.
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(*) Os resultados do presente estudo foram parcialmente apresentados no Congresso Hispano-Português de Psicologia (Lisboa, Setembro de 2004) e no Congresso Europeu de Psicologia (Granada, Julho de 2005). Esta investigação foi parcialmente subsidiada pela FCT (plurianual n.º 2333) e pelo Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia – Proyecto: BSO2003-02103.
(**) Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Lisboa, Portugal.
(***) Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Facultad de Psicología, Madrid, Espanha.
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