# Logic Conditionals, Supervenience, and Selection Tasks

## TL;DR

This paper explores how principles of cognitive economy and supervenience influence the understanding of logic conditionals and explains human performance in Wason's selection tasks through the lens of compression rather than logical necessity.

## Contribution

It introduces supervenience as a key property for conceptual compression and offers an alternative explanation for empirical results in selection tasks based on this concept.

## Key findings

- Supervenience is necessary for conceptual compression.
- Logic conditionals often violate principles of cognitive economy.
- Performance in Wason's selection tasks relates to compression ability, not logic necessity.

## Abstract

Principles of cognitive economy would require that concepts about objects, properties and relations should be introduced only if they simplify the conceptualisation of a domain. Unexpectedly, classic logic conditionals, specifying structures holding within elements of a formal conceptualisation, do not always satisfy this crucial principle. The paper argues that this requirement is captured by supervenience, hereby further identified as a property necessary for compression. The resulting theory suggests an alternative explanation of the empirical experiences observable in Wason's selection tasks, associating human performance with conditionals on the ability of dealing with compression, rather than with logic necessity.