Directionality of Attacks in Natural Language Argumentation

In formal (abstract and structured) argumentation theory, a central notion is that of an attack between a counterargument and the argument that it is challenging. Unlike the notion of an inconsistency between two statements in classical logic, this notion of an attack between arguments can be asymmetric, i.e. an argument A can attack an argument B without B attacking A. While this property of the formal systems studied by argumentation theorist has been motivated by considerations about the human practice of argumentation in natural language, there have not been any systematic studies on the connection between the directionality of attacks in argumentation-theoretic formalisms and the way humans actually interpret conflicts between arguments in a non-symmetric way. In this paper, we report on the result of two empirical cognitive studies that aim at filling this gap, one study with ordinary adults (undergraduate students) and one study with adult experts in formal argumentation theory. We interpret the results in light of the notions and distinctions defined in the ASPIC+ framework for structured argumentation, and discuss the relevance of our findings to past and future empirical studies about the link between human argumentation and formal argumentation theory.