SPATIAL AND VISUAL REASONING: HUMANS VERSUS LOGIC

Glasgow's revival of the "imagery debate" in computational terms provides a renewed opportunity to review the role of logical reasoning in general problem solving. Of special interest is the long-standing distinction between analogical or depictive problem representations, and the more abstract linguistic forms typified by traditional formal logic syntax.
In our brief statement, we recall that logical reasoning rests on semantics not syntax, and that the concepts of soundness, completeness, and consistency are manifest in both depictive and linguistic representations. We emerge with two conclusions: (1) enduring confusion regarding computational aspects of the "imagery debate" arise from long-standing confusion regarding key logical concepts, and related notions such as epistemological versus heuristic adequacy, logical versus probabilistic independence, and direct versus indirect representations; (2) the desire for depictive reasoning methods is ultimately motivated by human needs, not computational needs.