Collective Induction

Collective induction is the cooperative search for rules and principles. For example, members of a scientific research team observe patterns and regularities in some domain (e.g., biology), propose a theory to explain them, derive hypotheses from the theory, and use experiments or controlled observations to test the hypotheses. If the results of their research support the hypotheses, team members become more confident in their theory. If the results fail to support the hypotheses, team members revise or reject their theory. This entry discusses research on collective induction that models the behavior of scientific research teams and similar cooperative groups, such as auditing teams, air crash investigators, and art experts.