{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/49609"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/49609","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"The same cognitive mechanism underlies reasoning about the features of kinds and the traits of individuals","abstract":"Learning about categories of things in the world (e.g., that lions have manes) and learning about the individuals around us (e.g., that the new neighbor is friendly) are both crucial cognitive tasks whose output enables people to behave adaptively in many novel circumstances. Aside from their importance to our lives, however, these two tasks seem to have little in common: Reasoning about the features of categories appears to rely on a set of computations that is entirely distinct from those involved in reasoning about the traits of individuals. Consistent with this impression, these judgments have been studied in near-complete isolation. Here, however, we propose that inferences about the features of kinds and the traits of individuals are in fact computed by the same cognitive mechanism. To test this hypothesis, we investigated whether kind-feature and individual-trait inferences share two distinctive signatures: namely, whether they are both facilitated by features/behaviors that are (1) threatening or (2) unique. Five experiments provided evidence for this prediction. The results also suggested that these signatures were not shared by other types of inferences. That is, the information that facilitated participants’ kind-feature and individual-trait inferences did not similarly facilitate quantified inferences concerning whether all/some members of a kind display a feature and whether an individual always/sometimes performs a behavior. By suggesting that inferences about the features of kinds and the traits of individuals share a cognitive source, these studies open possibilities for dialogue between the independent research traditions that have investigated these important aspects of human thought.","abstract_html":"Learning about categories of things in the world (e.g., that lions have manes) and learning about the individuals around us (e.g., that the new neighbor is friendly) are both crucial cognitive tasks whose output enables people to behave adaptively in many novel circumstances. Aside from their importance to our lives, however, these two tasks seem to have little in common: Reasoning about the features of categories appears to rely on a set of computations that is entirely distinct from those involved in reasoning about the traits of individuals. Consistent with this impression, these judgments have been studied in near-complete isolation. Here, however, we propose that inferences about the features of kinds and the traits of individuals are in fact computed by the same cognitive mechanism. To test this hypothesis, we investigated whether kind-feature and individual-trait inferences share two distinctive signatures: namely, whether they are both facilitated by features/behaviors that are (1) threatening or (2) unique. Five experiments provided evidence for this prediction. The results also suggested that these signatures were not shared by other types of inferences. That is, the information that facilitated participants’ kind-feature and individual-trait inferences did not similarly facilitate quantified inferences concerning whether all/some members of a kind display a feature and whether an individual always/sometimes performs a behavior. By suggesting that inferences about the features of kinds and the traits of individuals share a cognitive source, these studies open possibilities for dialogue between the independent research traditions that have investigated these important aspects of human thought.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Bian, Lin"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.A.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Psychology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Cimpian, Andrei"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2014,"date_issued":"2014-05-30T16:52:16Z","date_published":"2014-05-30T16:52:16Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:38Z","subjects":["inductive inferences","categories","trait attribution","generics","quantifiers"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2014 Lin Bian"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/49609","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Cimpian, Andrei"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Bian, Lin"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2014-05-30T16:52:16Z","2014-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Psychology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.A."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["inductive inferences","categories","trait attribution","generics","quantifiers"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2014 Lin Bian"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/49609"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Learning about categories of things in the world (e.g., that lions have manes) and learning about the individuals around us (e.g., that the new neighbor is friendly) are both crucial cognitive tasks whose output enables people to behave adaptively in many novel circumstances. Aside from their importance to our lives, however, these two tasks seem to have little in common: Reasoning about the features of categories appears to rely on a set of computations that is entirely distinct from those involved in reasoning about the traits of individuals. Consistent with this impression, these judgments have been studied in near-complete isolation. Here, however, we propose that inferences about the features of kinds and the traits of individuals are in fact computed by the same cognitive mechanism. To test this hypothesis, we investigated whether kind-feature and individual-trait inferences share two distinctive signatures: namely, whether they are both facilitated by features/behaviors that are (1) threatening or (2) unique. Five experiments provided evidence for this prediction. The results also suggested that these signatures were not shared by other types of inferences. That is, the information that facilitated participants’ kind-feature and individual-trait inferences did not similarly facilitate quantified inferences concerning whether all/some members of a kind display a feature and whether an individual always/sometimes performs a behavior. By suggesting that inferences about the features of kinds and the traits of individuals share a cognitive source, these studies open possibilities for dialogue between the independent research traditions that have investigated these important aspects of human thought.","Item withdrawn by Laura Spradlin (lspradl2@illinois.edu) on 2014-04-30T15:52:33Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 2 Bian_Lin.docx: 185082 bytes, checksum: 77bb99cc2f7da2e626810c046b861f95 (MD5) Bian_Lin.pdf: 480660 bytes, checksum: 8f57315e55da1c25c3582c40549218b7 (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2014-05-30T16:52:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 Lin_Bian.pdf: 480660 bytes, checksum: 8f57315e55da1c25c3582c40549218b7 (MD5) Bian_Lin.docx: 185082 bytes, checksum: 77bb99cc2f7da2e626810c046b861f95 (MD5) license.txt: 4058 bytes, checksum: 618902e362b04934f57fe911f0fab453 (MD5)"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The same cognitive mechanism underlies reasoning about the features of kinds and the traits of individuals"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Cimpian, Andrei"],"dc:creator":["Bian, Lin"],"dc:date":["2014-05-30T16:52:16Z","2014-05"],"dc:description":["Learning about categories of things in the world (e.g., that lions have manes) and learning about the individuals around us (e.g., that the new neighbor is friendly) are both crucial cognitive tasks whose output enables people to behave adaptively in many novel circumstances. Aside from their importance to our lives, however, these two tasks seem to have little in common: Reasoning about the features of categories appears to rely on a set of computations that is entirely distinct from those involved in reasoning about the traits of individuals. Consistent with this impression, these judgments have been studied in near-complete isolation. Here, however, we propose that inferences about the features of kinds and the traits of individuals are in fact computed by the same cognitive mechanism. To test this hypothesis, we investigated whether kind-feature and individual-trait inferences share two distinctive signatures: namely, whether they are both facilitated by features/behaviors that are (1) threatening or (2) unique. Five experiments provided evidence for this prediction. The results also suggested that these signatures were not shared by other types of inferences. That is, the information that facilitated participants’ kind-feature and individual-trait inferences did not similarly facilitate quantified inferences concerning whether all/some members of a kind display a feature and whether an individual always/sometimes performs a behavior. By suggesting that inferences about the features of kinds and the traits of individuals share a cognitive source, these studies open possibilities for dialogue between the independent research traditions that have investigated these important aspects of human thought.","Item withdrawn by Laura Spradlin (lspradl2@illinois.edu) on 2014-04-30T15:52:33Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 2 Bian_Lin.docx: 185082 bytes, checksum: 77bb99cc2f7da2e626810c046b861f95 (MD5) Bian_Lin.pdf: 480660 bytes, checksum: 8f57315e55da1c25c3582c40549218b7 (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2014-05-30T16:52:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 Lin_Bian.pdf: 480660 bytes, checksum: 8f57315e55da1c25c3582c40549218b7 (MD5) Bian_Lin.docx: 185082 bytes, checksum: 77bb99cc2f7da2e626810c046b861f95 (MD5) license.txt: 4058 bytes, checksum: 618902e362b04934f57fe911f0fab453 (MD5)"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/49609"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2014 Lin Bian"],"dc:subject":["inductive inferences","categories","trait attribution","generics","quantifiers"],"dc:title":["The same cognitive mechanism underlies reasoning about the features of kinds and the traits of individuals"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Psychology"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.A."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:38Z"}