Inductive generalization, where people go beyond the data provided, is a basic cognitive capability, and it underpins theoretical accounts of learning, categorization, and decision making. To complete the inductive leap needed for generalization, people must make a key "sampling" assumption about how the available data were generated.…

The production of verbal operants not previously taught is an important aspect of language productivity. For Skinner, new mands, tacts, and autoclitics result from the recombination of verbal operants. The relation between these mands, tacts, and autoclitics is what linguists call "analogy," a grammatical pattern that serves as a foundation on…

This paper reviewed (a) conceptualization, (b) research, and (c) theories of inductive reasoning and, in turn, proposed both a behaviorally-oriented definition and matching process model. The overall conclusion was that, in spite of the pervasiveness and importance of induction as a knowledge generation process, research and theoretical activities…