Inductive Reasoning

W ithout inductive reasoning, we couldn't generalize from one instance to anoth er, derive scientific hypotheses, or predict that the sun will rise again tomorrow morning. Despite the prevalence of inductive reasoning, books on this topic are rare. Indeed, this is the first book on the psychology of inductive reasoning in twenty years. The chapters survey recent advances in the study of inductive reasoning and address ques tions about how it develops, the role of knowledge in induction, how best to model people's reasoning, and how induction relates to other forms of thinking. Written by experts in phi losophy, developmental science, cognitive psychology, and computational modeling, the contributions here will be of interest to a general cognitive science audience as well as to those with a more specialized interest in the study of thinking.
AIDAN FEENEY is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Durham University. He received his B.A. in psychology from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1992 and completed his Ph.D. at the Center for Thinking and Language at the University of Plymouth. He was appointed Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Durham University in 1998 and became Senior Lecturer in 2005. Dr. Feeney's research has been supported by a number of grants from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK). He has published approximately thirty journal articles, book chapters, and papers on the psychology of hypothesis testing and reasoning.
EVAN HEIT is currently Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science, and Founding
Faculty, at the University of California, Merced. Previously, Dr. Heit was on the faculty in the Psychology Department of the University of Warwick, UK. He has undergraduate degrees in computer science and psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He also carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University. Professor Heit has published more than fifty papers on the psychology of reasoning, memory, and categorization. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (UK). He is currently on the editorial board of Memory and Cognition and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Memory and Language.
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS