Title: A formal method to analyse human reasoning and interpretation in incident management

Authors: Tibor Bosse, Mark Hoogendoorn, Catholijn M. Jonker, Jan Treur

Addresses: Department of Artificial Intelligence, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1081a, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. ' Department of Artificial Intelligence, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1081a, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. ' Department of Mediametics, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands. ' Department of Artificial Intelligence, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1081a, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract: The study of human reasoning often concentrates on reasoning from an already assumed interpretation of the world, thereby neglecting reasoning towards an interpretation. In the recent literature within cognitive science, the means taken from the area of nonmonotonic logic are proposed to analyse the latter aspect of human reasoning. In this paper, this claim is further worked out and tested against the empirical material of human reasoning during critical situations (incident management). Empirical and simulated reasoning traces have been analysed by comparing them and by automatically checking their properties.

Keywords: formal methods; human reasoning; interpretation; incident management; emergency management; nonmonotonic logic; crisis management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEM.2008.019912

International Journal of Emergency Management, 2008 Vol.5 No.1/2, pp.164 - 192

Published online: 15 Aug 2008 *

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