Abductive reasoning and interpretations of conceptual combinations

Abduction is a logical process for generating new hypotheses. Because of a lack of research, there is no empirical evidence that shows the existence of abduction. In this study, it is assumed that the interpretation of novel noun-noun combinations depends on abductive reasoning.; Forty subjects participated in this study. Twenty undergraduates participated in an audiotaped session in which they interpreted novel noun-noun combinations. They solved three tasks: background knowledge task, hypothesis selection and generation task, and referent selection task. The other twenty subjects participated in the study by answering a norming task where they selected the most plausible interpretation of each noun combination. Quantitative methodologies were employed to address the two research questions: (a) whether people use background knowledge and context to interpret novel noun-noun combinations, and (b) whether the selection process occurs before and during the interpretation of novel noun-noun combinations. Multiple-case studies were employed to develop a process model of the interpretation of noun combinations.; The audiotapes were coded on the basis of the choices of the norming task. The effect of the context on the interpretation of noun combinations was analyzed for the two different contexts. The role of background knowledge was analyzed by measuring the response time.; The quantitative results indicated that (1) the subjects used their background knowledge and considered the contexts, and (2) the selection process occurred during the interpretation process. The findings of the descriptive case study showed that (1) the subjects used abductive reasoning, and (2) there were two types of interpretation: association-based and context-based interpretation.