inference

Examples of inference in the following topics:

• Basic Inferential Statistics

  • Statistical inference makes claims about a population of individuals or things, using data drawn from a smaller subset of the population known as a sample.
  • When psychologists want to test a research hypothesis, they will usually need to use statistical inference.
  • Statistical inference makes propositions about a population by using a sample, which is data drawn from that population.
  • Statistical inference therefore literally helps us make inferences about the characteristics of populations (their parameters) from characteristics of our sample (statistics).
  • Because it is typically impossible to study an entire population, a sample gets us as close as possible, and statistical inference enables us to infer the characteristics of our population.

• Reasoning and Inference

  • Reason is how we form inferences about the world; there are different types of reasoning, which have different advantages.
  • We use reason to form inferences—conclusions drawn from propositions or assumptions that are supposed to be true.
  • There is more than one way to start with information and arrive at an inference; thus, there is more than one way to reason.
  • Inductive reasoning makes broad inferences from specific cases or observations.
  • In this video, we see the famous literary character Sherlock Holmes use both inductive and deductive reasoning to form inferences about his friends.

• Reasoning

  • Psychologists have attempted to study and explain how people reason, which cognitive processes are engaged, and how cultural factors affect the inferences that people draw.
  • Abduction is a form of logical inference that goes from an observation to a hypothesis that accounts for the observation.
  • Unlike deductive reasoning, the premise does not guarantee the conclusion, and is considered an inference to the best explanation.
  • Analogy is an inference, or an argument, from one particular subject to another.

• Social Perception

  • They help to interpret other's actions so that additional information can be quickly inferred in order to predict behavior.
  • It describes an individual's understanding of other's mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and knowledge, to allow an individual to make inferences about such other's thoughts, motivations, and emotions.
  • It is an essential tool for social perception since it gives an individual the ability to infer what another may be thinking or experiencing.

• Basic Descriptive Statistics

  • The goal of statistics is to summarize data in a manner that allows for easy descriptions or inferences to be made.
  • The goal of statistics is to summarize data in a manner that allows for easy descriptions or inferences to be made.

• Descriptive Research

  • Experimental research goes a step further beyond descriptive and correlational research and randomly assigns people to different conditions, using hypothesis testing to make inferences about how these conditions affect behavior.

• Cognitive Development in Childhood

  • Several key thinking processes emerge during this stage, including reversibility, seriation, and transitive inference.
  • Transitive inference is a relational concept in which children can understand how objects are related to one another; for example, if a dog is a mammal, and a boxer is a dog, then a boxer must also be a mammal.

• Perceiving Motion

  • Motion perception is the process of inferring the speed and direction of elements in a scene based on visual input.

• Evolutionary Psychology

  • Other adaptations might include the abilities to infer others' emotions, to discern kin from non-kin, to identify and prefer healthier mates, to cooperate with others, and so on.

• Studying the Brain

  • For example, damage to a part of the brain called Broca’s area causes patients to lose the ability to speak; knowing this, we can infer that that part of the brain is in some way related to language production.