A logical description of the deduction of instances from concepts.
Thomas H. Mott, Bruce M. Ross · PsycEXTRA Dataset · 1975
A formal logical description is given of concept instantiation, the deduction of valid instances that satisfy a single concept or a list of two or more concepts. Advantages pertaining to the deductive scheme are enumerated together with its relation to a previously worked out model of concept attainment, the deduction of concepts from instances. Several instantiation problems and their solutions are presented to illustrate the practical usefulness of the scheme. The claim is made that no rationale has previously been given for this type of problem as the psychology of thinking has usually studied problems in which the concept-instance relation is arbitrary.