The Development of Thinking and Reasoning

9Intuition, reasoning and development

A fuzzy-trace theory approach

Valerie F. Reyna

Introduction

Intuition is unconscious

In this chapter, I discuss a framework for reasoning and rationality that contrasts with traditional approaches, such as Piagetian logicism – reasoning as logic – and information-processing formalism – reasoning as computation. This framework is called “intuitionism” because reasoning is conceived of as intuition, as defined in fuzzy-trace theory (Reyna & Brainerd, 2011). By “intuition,” I mean fuzzy, impressionistic thinking using vague gist representations that capture essential meaning. As in traditional approaches, intuition in fuzzy-trace theory tends to influence cognition unconsciously. People can consciously report ...