O'BRIEN, DAVID P. Ph.D.

Professor

Biography

Research

Research Interests: Human deductive reasoning and its development. Programmatic investigation of mental logic and its interdigitation with pragmatics, control processes and language. Comparative investigation of content-dependent, mental models, and mental-logic approaches to problem solving. Inferences made in text and discourse processing.

Research Facilities: Laboratory space with Macintosh computers at Baruch College; capability to conduct on-line measures of text processing and problem solving. Access to introductory psychology subject pool and to a Baruch College day care center and a day care center at the College of Staten Island. Cooperative research and data collection with colleagues in Brazil and France.

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Selected Publications

O'Brien, D.P., Dias, M.G., & Roazzi, A. (1998). Conditional reasoning: The logic of supposition and children's understanding of pretense. In M.D.S. Braine and D.P. O'Brien (Eds.). Mental Logic. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Braine, M.D.S., O'Brien, D.P., Noveck, I.A., Samuels, M., Lea, R.B., Fisch, S.M. and Yang, Y. (1995). Predicting intermediate and multiple conclusions in propositional logic inference problems: Further evidence for a mental logic. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 124, 263-292.

O'Brien, D.P., Braine, M.D.S., & Yang, Y. (1994). Propositional reasoningby models? Simple to refute in principle and in practice. Psychological Review, 101, 711-724.

O'Brien, D.P., (1993). Mental logic and irrationality: We can put a man on the moon, so why can't we solve those logical reasoning problems? In K.I. Manktelow and D.E. Over (eds.). Rationality: Psychological and philosophical perspectives, 110-135. London, UK: Routledge.

Braine, M.D.S., & O'Brien, D.P. (1991). A theory of IF: A lexical entry, reasoning program and pragmatic principles. Psychological Review, 98, 182-203.