Abstract

The ability to perform induction appears early; however, underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Some argue that early induction is category based, whereas others suggest that early induction is similarity based. Categoryand similarity-based induction should result in different memory traces and thus in different memory accuracy. Performing induction resulted in low memory accuracy in adults and 11-year-olds, whereas 5-, and 7-year-olds were highly accurate (Experiment 1). After training to perform category-based induction, 5- and 7-year-olds exhibited patterns of accuracy similar to those of adults (Experiment 2). Furthermore, 7-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds, retained this training over time (Experiment 3). With novel categories, even adults performed similarity-based induction, exhibiting high memory accuracy (Experiment 4). These results suggest a gradual transition from similarity- to category-based induction with familiar categories. The ability to generalize from the known to the unknown is crucial for learning new information: On learning that polar bears use dopamine as a neurotransmitter, one could generalize this information to brown bears, black bears, giant pandas, and possibly to other mammals. Although it has been amply demonstrated that even infants and very young children are capable of simple inductive generalizations

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