Inductive learning: Forming inferences. Not really conditioning.
What we learn from induction: Concepts, Categories, and
Language
CONCEPT ACQUISITION
When we learn concepts, (concept of food, what doggieness is
etc.) how do we learn it? Is it similar to associative learning
(conditioning)?
Yes (Hull, 1920): its just like simple associative learning, we come
to associate a particular response with a particular stimulus.
People learn rules of classification without realizing it. CC is the
same in that people are conditioned without realizing they are
being conditioned.
Ex. Hull’s Study: 6 lists of Chinese characters. Used non-
Chinese speakers. Each list exemplified a character based on
a particular radical (concept), which was like a shape that
was also seen in each list but had other stuff added to it.
Kind of like “Where’s Waldo.” Subjects were eventually able
to classify very accurately but they didn’t know why. They
didn’t know what rule they learned. In conditioning, you can
be conditioned without realizing it.
No (Bruner, 1956): It’s more complex than classical conditioning.
We use other kinds of things like hypotheses, we make
inferences, we test our hypotheses, and in conditioning, we don’t
do that.
Ex. Bruner’s Study: Did not tell his subjects that these were
all organized according to a particular radical. He used 81
different cards. The stimuli on the cards varied on 4
dimensions. They varied on the shape that was in the middle
of the card, by the color of the shape (3 different colors), and
the number of shapes in the middle of the card, and the
number of borders drawn around the edge of the card. When
you combine all those combinations, you get 81 different
combinations. He wanted to see how well people were able
to figure out what the rule was and classify them in the right
