Psychology 3130A/B Chapter 6: Chapter 6 - Inference and Induction

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3130A/B
• Professor: John Paul Minda

Document Summary

The role of induction in thinking: inferences and conclusions. Induction: using past experiences to predict what might happen in the future under similar circumstances. Inferences: conclusions based on available evidence: generalization, generalizations: broad conclusion about a whole class or group of things, basis of many stereotypes and prejudices, we rely on inductive reasoning to discover something new by thinking. Induction seemed to defy formal operations (unlike deductive reasoning) Problem of induction: we cannot use past inductive success to predict future inductive success: we rely on induction to explain induction. Fundamental processes of associative learning classical conditioning organisms learn an association between two stimuli that frequently co- occur conditioned response can be a form of inductive inference. I. e. cat associated sound of a can opening with receiving food: cat makes a prediction and generates an expectation. If our past experience is very similar to present situations there is a high likelihood that our inferences will be accurate and vice versa.