Category-Based Induction

5-6-Year-Old Children's Understanding of Plausibility and Application of Dissimilarity of Premise Categories to Inductive Arguments

Abstract

The present study examined children's ability in category-based induction. Two competences-their understanding about the nature of the plausibility of inductive arguments and their utilization of the dissimilarity of premise categories for judging plausibility-were investigated. The experimental task was paired comparison of three arguments regarding the plausibility. Experiment 1 clarified that children could consistently choose more plausible arguments through three comparison trials. This means that they could order the arguments according to plausibility. The patterns of order were analyzed in order to clarify whether they could apply the degree of dissimilarity of premise categories to estimating plausibility. The result of analysis showed that the majority of children could order the arguments based on the degree of dissimilarity of the premise categories. The above two findings were replicated in Experiment 2, in which the combination of the premise categories was more complex. The results of the two experiment suggest that children understand the transitive nature of the plausibility of inductive arguments, and that they realize that the degree of dissimilarity of premise categories can be used as a cue for estimating plausibility