Induction: Possibilities, frequency, and confidence

Abstract

The theory of mental models describes how human beings often make inductive inferences. That account is based on possibilities. It claims that, in inductions, people tend to prefer the possibility that seems to be more probable. The present paper tries to develop the account by proposing an additional quantitative method to determine which of the two possibilities in inductive processes is preferable. The paper resorts to a Non-Axiomatic Logic: NAL. NAL assigns quantitative values to the frequency and confidence of sentences. It also shows how those values can be transmitted from premises to conclusions in inductive inferences. This part of NAL is applied to the account of induction the theory of mental models gives.