Mechanisms of predictive and diagnostic causal induction.
In predictive causal inference, people reason from causes to effects, whereas in diagnostic inference, they reason from effects to causes. Independently of the causal structure of the events, the temporal structure of the information provided to a reasoner may vary (e.g., multiple events followed by a single event vs. a single event followed by multiple events). The authors report 5 experiments in which causal structure and temporal information were varied independently. Inferences were influenced by temporal structure but not by causal structure. The results are relevant to the evaluation of 2 current accounts of causal induction, the Rescorla-Wagner (R. A. Rescorla & A. R. Wagner, 1972) and causal model theories (M. R. Waldmann & K. J. Holyoak, 1992).
Cobos
Pedro L
PL
Departamento de Psicología Básica, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain. p_cobos@uma.es
López
Francisco J
FJ
Caño
Antonio
A
Almaraz
Julián
J
Shanks
David R
DR
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001245:Association Learning; D015984:Causality; D003210:Concept Formation; D003463:Cues; D003662:Decision Theory; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D008606:Mental Processes; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011340:Problem Solving