The role of causal models in analogical inference.

Computational models of analogy have assumed that the strength of an inductive inference about the target is based directly on similarity of the analogs and in particular on shared higher order relations. In contrast, work in philosophy of science suggests that analogical inference is also guided by causal models of the source and target. In 3 experiments, the authors explored the possibility that people may use causal models to assess the strength of analogical inferences. Experiments 1-2 showed that reducing analogical overlap by eliminating a shared causal relation (a preventive cause present in the source) from the target increased inductive strength even though it decreased similarity of the analogs. These findings were extended in Experiment 3 to cross-domain analogical inferences based on correspondences between higher order causal relations. Analogical inference appears to be mediated by building and then running a causal model. The implications of the present findings for theories of both analogy and causal inference are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dispositional Attribution: Multiple Inferences About Motive-Related Traits.

This research views dispositional inference as a process whereby perceivers integrate multiple inferences about a target person's motives and traits. The findings suggest that although perceived motives may stimulate extra attributional processing (S. Fein, 1996), the content of the inferred motive is important as well. Perceivers learned about situational forces implying that a target person had free choice, no choice, or an ulterior motive for helpful behavior. Inferences about the target's helpfulness differed depending on whether the target's behavior was attributed to an obedience motive (no-choice condition) or to a selfish motive (ulterior-motive condition). In general, inferences about motives were more predictive of dispositional inferences than were global causal attributions (to situational vs. dispositional forces) or base rate assumptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Word, thought, and deed: The role of object categories in children's inductive inferences and exploratory play.

Previous research (e.g., S. A. Gelman & E. M. Markman, 1986; A. Gopnik & D. M. Sobel, 2000) suggests that children can use category labels to make inductive inferences about nonobvious causal properties of objects. However, such inductive generalizations can fail to predict objects' causal properties when (a) the property being projected varies within the category, (b) the category is arbitrary (e.g., things smaller than a bread box), or (c) the property being projected is due to an exogenous intervention rather than intrinsic to the object kind. In 4 studies, the authors showed that preschoolers (M = 48 months; range = 42-57 months) were sensitive to these constraints on induction and selectively engaged in exploration when evidence about objects' causal properties conflicted with inductive generalizations from the objects' kind to their causal powers. This suggests that the exploratory actions children generate in free play could support causal learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Event perception: A mind-brain perspective.

People perceive and conceive of activity in terms of discrete events. Here the authors propose a theory according to which the perception of boundaries between events arises from ongoing perceptual processing and regulates attention and memory. Perceptual systems continuously make predictions about what will happen next. When transient errors in predictions arise, an event boundary is perceived. According to the theory, the perception of events depends on both sensory cues and knowledge structures that represent previously learned information about event parts and inferences about actors' goals and plans. Neurological and neurophysiological data suggest that representations of events may be implemented by structures in the lateral prefrontal cortex and that perceptual prediction error is calculated and evaluated by a processing pathway, including the anterior cingulate cortex and subcortical neuromodulatory systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal relations and feature similarity in children's inductive reasoning.

Four experiments examined the development of property induction on the basis of causal relations. In the first 2 studies, 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults were presented with triads in which a target instance was equally similar to 2 inductive bases but shared a causal antecedent feature with 1 of them. All 3 age groups used causal relations as a basis for property induction, although the proportion of causal inferences increased with age. Subsequent experiments pitted causal relations against featural similarity in induction. It was found that adults and 8-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds, preferred shared causal relations over strong featural similarity as a basis for induction. The implications for models of inductive reasoning and development are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Polling the face: Prediction and consensus across cultures.

Previous work has shown that individuals agree across cultures on the traits that they infer from faces. Previous work has also shown that inferences from faces can be predictive of important outcomes within cultures. The current research merges these two lines of work. In a series of cross-cultural studies, the authors asked American and Japanese participants to provide na?ve inferences of traits from the faces of U.S. political candidates (Studies 1 and 3) and Japanese political candidates (Studies 2 and 4). Perceivers showed high agreement in their ratings of the faces, regardless of culture, and both sets of judgments were predictive of an important ecological outcome (the percentage of votes that each candidate received in the actual election). The traits predicting electoral success differed, however, depending on the targets’ culture. Thus, when American and Japanese participants were asked to provide explicit inferences of how likely each candidate would be to win an election (Studies 3–4), judgments were predictive only for same-culture candidates. Attempts to infer the electoral success for the foreign culture showed evidence of self-projection. Therefore, perceivers can reliably infer predictive information from faces but require knowledge about the target’s culture to make these predictions accurately. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Blickets and babies: The development of causal reasoning in toddlers and infants.

Previous research has suggested that preschoolers possess a cognitive system that allows them to construct an abstract, coherent representation of causal relations among events. Such a system lets children reason retrospectively when they observe ambiguous data in a rational manner (e.g., D. M. Sobel, J. B. Tenenbaum, & A. Gopnik, 2004). However, there is little evidence that demonstrates whether younger children possess similar inferential abilities. In Experiment 1, the authors extended previous findings with older children to examine 19- and 24-month-olds' causal inferences. Twenty-four-month-olds' inferences were similar to those of preschoolers, but younger children lacked the ability to make retrospective causal inferences, perhaps because of performance limitations. In Experiment 2, the authors designed an eye-tracking paradigm to test younger participants that eliminated various manual search demands. Eight-month-olds' anticipatory eye movements, in response to retrospective data, revealed inferences similar to those of 24-month-olds in Experiment 1 and preschoolers in previous research. These data are discussed in terms of associative reasoning and causal inference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal Learning Across Domains.

Five studies investigated (a) children's ability to use the dependent and independent probabilities of events to make causal inferences and (b) the interaction between such inferences and domain-specific knowledge. In Experiment 1, preschoolers used patterns of dependence and independence to make accurate causal inferences in the domains of biology and psychology. Experiment 2 replicated the results in the domain of biology with a more complex pattern of conditional dependencies. In Experiment 3, children used evidence about patterns of dependence and independence to craft novel interventions across domains. In Experiments 4 and 5, children's sensitivity to patterns of dependence was pitted against their domain-specific knowledge. Children used conditional probabilities to make accurate causal inferences even when asked to violate domain boundaries. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing the Causal Structure of Function.

Theories typically emphasize affordances or intentions as the primary determinant of an object's perceived function. The HIPE theory assumes that people integrate both into causal models that produce functional attributions. In these models, an object's physical structure and an agent's action specify an affordance jointly, constituting the immediate causes of a perceived function. The object's design history and an agent's goal in using it constitute distant causes. When specified fully, the immediate causes are sufficient for determining the perceived function--distant causes have no effect (the causal proximity principle). When the immediate causes are ambiguous or unknown, distant causes produce inferences about the immediate causes, thereby affecting functional attributions indirectly (the causal updating principle). Seven experiments supported HIPE's predictions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Incrimination through innuendo: Can media questions become public answers?

Conducted 3 experiments to examine the effects that incriminating innuendo delivered by media sources have on audience impressions of innuendo targets. A total of 182 undergraduates served as Ss. The 1st study demonstrated innuendo effects by showing that audience impressions of a target were swayed in a negative direction by exposure to a prototypical innuendo headline, the incriminating question. A similar but substantially weaker effect was observed for an incriminating denial. The 2nd study showed that although variations in source credibility affected the persuasiveness of direct incriminating assertions, they had appreciably less impact on the persuasiveness of innuendos. In the 3rd study, the inferences an audience makes about the motives and knowledge of an innuendo source were investigated for their possible mediation of the innuendo effect. Audience inferences about the sensationalistic or muckraking qualities of the source were found to have a negligible influence on acceptance of innuendo from the source. The analysis also revealed that audiences commonly infer that the source is attempting to avoid charges of libel, which can reduce receptiveness to innuendo communication. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal beliefs and conditioned responses: Retrospective revaluation induced by experience and by instruction.

The author tested causal beliefs and conditioned responses in a task involving retrospective revaluation of the causal status of a target cue with respect to electric shock. Successful revaluation was observed on both self-report shock expectancy and skin conductance, whether the training trials were directly experienced, described, or partly experienced and partly described. The results contradict models that link anticipatory conditioned responses to a separate or earlier process from that underlying explicit causal knowledge. They suggest instead that a single learning process gives rise to propositional knowledge that (a) drives anticipatory responding, (b) forms the basis for self-reported causal beliefs, and (c) can be combined with other knowledge, provided either by experience or symbolically, to generate inferences such as retrospective revaluation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferences About the Authentic Self: When Do Actions Say More Than Mental States?

Three studies involving 478 undergraduates examined the perceived importance of observable actions versus mental states in revealing the "true self"-the authentic and fundamental nature of a target person. Results suggest that when people have only limited information about a target, they believe that an action is more diagnostic of the individual's true self than the accompanying mental state. When participants have knowledge concerning chronic dispositional tendencies of the target, however, they judge that a chronic mental state is more diagnostic of the true self than a chronic action tendency. Considered together, the findings suggest that people conceptualize the true self as a relatively private entity but nevertheless believe that an action of a little-known person may be particularly informative about that individual. Perceived diagnosticity of the true self was partially mediated by inferences concerning the relative stability of actions versus states but not by inferences of volition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing Interactive Causal Influence.

The discovery of conjunctive causes--factors that act in concert to produce or prevent an effect--has been explained by purely covariational theories. Such theories assume that concomitant variations in observable events directly license causal inferences, without postulating the existence of unobservable causal relations. This article discusses problems with these theories, proposes a causal-power theory that overcomes the problems, and reports empirical evidence favoring the new theory. Unlike earlier models, the new theory derives (a) the conditions under which covariation implies conjunctive causation and (b) functions relating observable events to unobservable conjunctive causal strength. This psychological theory, which concerns simple cases involving 2 binary candidate causes and a binary effect, raises questions about normative statistics for testing causal hypotheses regarding categorical data resulting from discrete variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decision makers conceive of their choices as interventions.

Causal considerations must be relevant for those making decisions. Whether to bring an umbrella or leave it at home depends on the causal consequences of these options. However, most current decision theories do not address causal reasoning. Here, the authors propose a causal model theory of choice based on causal Bayes nets. The critical ideas are (a) that people decide using causal models of the decision situation and (b) that people conceive of their own choice as an intervention. Four corroborating experiments are reported. The first 2 experiments showed that participants chose on the basis of the causal structure underlying a choice scenario rather than the statistical relation among actions and outcomes. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that participants treated choices and interventions similarly. They also suggest that decision makers use causal models to derive inferences about expected outcomes. Boundary conditions on causal decision making and examples of faulty causal inferences in choice (e.g., self-deception) are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives.

Presents a theory of norms and normality and applies the theory to phenomena of emotional responses, social judgment, and conversations about causes. Norms are assumed to be constructed ad hoc by recruiting specific representations. Category norms are derived by recruiting exemplars. Specific objects or events generate their own norms by retrieval of similar experiences stored in memory or by construction of counterfactual alternatives. The normality of a stimulus is evaluated by comparing it with the norms that it evokes after the fact, rather than to precomputed expectations. Norm theory is applied in analyses of the enhanced emotional response to events that have abnormal causes, of the generation of predictions and inferences from observations of behavior, and of the role of norms in causal questions and answers. (3 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)