Reasoning by Assumption: Formalisation and Analysis of Human Reasoning Traces

This paper shows how empirical human reasoning traces can be formalised and automatically analysed against dynamic properties they fulfil. To this end, for the reasoning pattern called 'reasoning by assumption' a variety of dynamic properties have been specified, some of which are considered characteristic for the reasoning pattern, whereas some other properties can be used to discriminate between different approaches to the reasoning. These properties have been automatically checked for the traces acquired in experiments undertaken. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005