• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.29-46
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• 2001

This study attempted to demonstrate that the integration of the two premises in linear syllogism is mediated by the middle term the term that is repeated in the two premises. In Experiment 1. we examined whether representing the middle term is more important than representing the end terms. We asked a question to each premise. Depending on the order of the questions either the two end terms or the middle term became the answer in both premises. Participants solved the problems better when the middle term became the answer suggesting that it is more important to represent the middle term than the end terms. In Experiment 2 we examined whether additional processing is needed for the integration beyond establishing co-referential link through the middle term. We pronominalized the middle term in the second premise and provided two kinds of information to disambiguate the pronoun. In the direct information condition we provided information about who the pronoun is whereas in the indirect information condition we provided information about the relative location of the pronoun. Participants solved the problems more quickly in the indirect information condition than in the direct information condition indicating that mere co-referential link was not enough and that the relative location of the middle term needs to be computed for the integration of the two premises.