Abductive reasoning

About: Abductive reasoning is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1917 publications have been published within this topic receiving 44645 citations. The topic is also known as: abduction & abductive inference.

Realist theory construction for a mixed method multilevel study of neighbourhood context and postnatal depression.

Abstract: We have recently described a protocol for a study that aims to build a theory of neighbourhood context and postnatal depression. That protocol proposed a critical realist Explanatory Theory Building Method comprising of an: (1) emergent phase, (2) construction phase, and (3) confirmatory phase. A concurrent triangulated mixed method multilevel cross-sectional study design was described. The protocol also described in detail the Theory Construction Phase which will be presented here. The Theory Construction Phase will include: (1) defining stratified levels; (2) analytic resolution; (3) abductive reasoning; (4) comparative analysis (triangulation); (5) retroduction; (6) postulate and proposition development; (7) comparison and assessment of theories; and (8) conceptual frameworks and model development. The stratified levels of analysis in this study were predominantly social and psychological. The abductive analysis used the theoretical frames of: Stress Process; Social Isolation; Social Exclusion; Social Services; Social Capital, Acculturation Theory and Global-economic level mechanisms. Realist propositions are presented for each analysis of triangulated data. Inference to best explanation is used to assess and compare theories. A conceptual framework of maternal depression, stress and context is presented that includes examples of mechanisms at psychological, social, cultural and global-economic levels. Stress was identified as a necessary mechanism that has the tendency to cause several outcomes including depression, anxiety, and health harming behaviours. The conceptual framework subsequently included conditional mechanisms identified through the retroduction including the stressors of isolation and expectations and buffers of social support and trust. The meta-theory of critical realism is used here to generate and construct social epidemiological theory using stratified ontology and both abductive and retroductive analysis. The findings will be applied to the development of a middle range theory and subsequent programme theory for local perinatal child and family interventions.

Abduction as Epistemic Change: A Peircean Model in Artificial Intelligence

Abstract: Charles S. Peirce’s abductive formulation ((Peirce, 1958, 5.189), reproduced on p.7), has been the point of departure of many recent studies on abductive reasoning in artificial intelligence, such as in logic programming (Kakas et al.,1992), knowledge acquisition (Kakas and Mancarella, 1994) and natural language processing (Hobbs et al.,1990).

Rethinking Intensive Quantities via Guided Mediated Abduction

Abstract: Some intensive quantities, such as slope, velocity, or likelihood, are perceptually privileged in the sense that they are experienced as holistic, irreducible sensations. However, the formal expression of these quantities uses a/b analytic metrics; for example, the slope of a line is the quotient of its rise and run. Thus, whereas students' sensation of an intensive quantity could serve as a powerful resource for grounding its formal expression, accepting the mathematical form requires students to align the sensation with a new way of reasoning about the phenomenon. I offer a case analysis of a middle school student who successfully came to understand the intensive quantity of likelihood. The analysis highlights a form of reasoning called abduction and suggests that sociocognitive processes can guide and mediate students' abductive reasoning. Interpreting the child's and tutor's multimodal action through the lens of abductive inference, I demonstrate the emergence of a proportional concept as guided media...

Introduction to Simulating the Past

Abstract: This is the introduction to a special issue of Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory focusing on modelling and simulation in archaeology. Archaeology is a discipline based on abductive reasoning, where the premises do not guarantee the conclusions. In other words, hypotheses in archaeology are generated on the basis of an incomplete set of observations, and the discovery or the acquisition of new information can modify the previously developed hypotheses. Abductive reasoning is a useful tool for developing explanations that are adequate to describe an J Archaeol Method Theory DOI 10.1007/s10816-014-9209-8