Universal Law Of Generalization

The Universal Law of Generalization is a theory of cognition (thought processes) originally put forth by researcher Roger Shepard that indicates that the probability that an organism’s response to one stimulus will be “generalized” to another stimulus is related to how closely the two stimuli resemble each other. For instance, when a person learns that some species of snakes are dangerous, that response generalizes to a fear of all snakes.

See also: Generalization