Inductive and deductive reasoning in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Abstract

This study examined the hypothesis that individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) show a selective deficit in inductive reasoning but are unimpaired in their ability to make deductive inferences. 100 participants from an analog sample made inductive or deductive inferences about arguments that differed according to causal consistency and validity. They also completed a task examining sensitivity to the implications of diverse evidence in induction. Participants who were high or low on obsessivecompulsive symptoms showed similar patterns of induction based on causal knowledge and similar patterns of deduction. However, those with the highest level of OCD symptoms showed less of a preference for diverse evidence when evaluating inductive arguments, compared to those with the lowest level of symptoms. This difference was found across both OCD-relevant and OCDneutral items, and persisted when the effects of group differences in general ability were controlled. These results indicate that both inductive reasoning based on background knowledge and deductive reasoning are intact in individuals with high OCD-traits but the use of inductive heuristics such as evidence diversity is impaired.

The diversity effect in inductive reasoning depends on sampling assumptions

“…In contrast, our approach suggests that the strength of the diversity effect depends on one’s assumptions about how premise information is selected—especially for the nondiverse samples. The fact that many previous studies (Feeney & Heit, 2011; Liew et al, 2018; Osherson et al, 1990) have demonstrated robust diversity effects in property induction without explicit manipulation of sampling assumptions suggests that strong sampling of the presented evidence may be the default for a majority of subjects. Notably, the assumption of strong sampling may be more widespread amongst adults than children.…”

“…For example, knowing that lions and cows have some property p is generally seen as a stronger basis for generalizing that property to other mammals than knowing that lions and tigers have property p (Osherson, Smith, Wilkie, Lopez, & Shafir, 1990). This diversity effect is robust, having been replicated across a range of reasoning tasks and category stimuli (e.g., Feeney & Heit, 2011; Liew, Grisham, & Hayes, 2018; Osherson et al, 1990). Moreover, diverse samples of evidence have been shown to facilitate hypothesis testing (e.g., López, 1995) and promote conceptual change (Hayes, Goodhew, Heit, & Gillan, 2003).…”

The diversity effect in inductive reasoning depends on sampling assumptions

“…In contrast, our approach suggests that the strength of the diversity effect depends on one's assumptions about how premise information is selected -especially for the nondiverse samples. The fact that many previous studies (Feeney & Heit, 2011;Liew et al, 2018;Osherson et al, 1990) have demonstrated robust diversity effects in property induction without explicit manipulation of sampling assumptions suggests that strong sampling of the presented evidence may be the default for a majority of subjects. Notably, the assumption of strong sampling may be more widespread amongst adults than children.…”

“…For example, knowing that lions and cows have some property p is generally seen as a stronger basis for generalizing that property to other mammals than knowing that lions and tigers have property p (Osherson, Smith, Wilkie, Lopez, & Shafir, 1990). This diversity effect is robust, having been replicated across a range of reasoning tasks and category stimuli (e.g., Feeney & Heit, 2011;Liew, Grisham, & Hayes, 2018;Osherson et al, 1990). Moreover, diverse samples of evidence have been shown to facilitate hypothesis testing (e.g., López, 1995) and promote conceptual change (Hayes, Goodhew, Heit, & Gillan, 2003).…”

Neural Oscillation Profiles of a Premise Monotonicity Effect During Semantic Category-Based Induction

“…For instance, it might be easier to generalize that all mammals have gene M based on the premise that both tigers and lions have gene M than based on the premise that only lions have gene M, because the former argument has a larger sample size than the latter. This effect is robust, and can be observed in children (Gutheil and Gelman, 1997; Li et al, 2009; Lawson, 2014; Rhodes and Liebenson, 2015), healthy adults (Osherson et al, 1990; Rotello and Heit, 2009; Feeney and Heit, 2011), and adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder (Liew et al, 2018).…”