Abstract

Different kinds of knowledge are relevant in different inductive contexts. Previous models of category-based induction have focused on judgments about taxonomic properties, but other kinds of models are needed for other kinds of properties. We present a new model of reasoning about causally transmitted properties. Our first experiment shows that the model predicts judgments about a disease-related property when only causal information is available. Our second experiment uses a disease-related property and a genetic property in a setting where both causal and taxonomic information are available. Our new model accounts only for judgments about the disease property, and a taxonomic model accounts only for judgments about the genetic property. This double dissociation suggests that qualitatively different models are needed to account for property induction. Any familiar thing can be thought about in a multitude of ways. A cat is a creature that climbs trees, eats

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