Cognitive Science 35 (8):1407-1455 (2011)
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Abstract |
People are adept at inferring novel causal relations, even from only a few observations. Prior knowledge about the probability of encountering causal relations of various types and the nature of the mechanisms relating causes and effects plays a crucial role in these inferences. We test a formal account of how this knowledge can be used and acquired, based on analyzing causal induction as Bayesian inference. Five studies explored the predictions of this account with adults and 4-year-olds, using tasks in which participants learned about the causal properties of a set of objects. The studies varied the two factors that our Bayesian approach predicted should be relevant to causal induction: the prior probability with which causal relations exist, and the assumption of a deterministic or a probabilistic relation between cause and effect. Adults’ judgments (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) were in close correspondence with the quantitative predictions of the model, and children’s judgments (Experiments 3 and 5) agreed qualitatively with this account
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Keywords | Bayesian inference Causal induction Knowledge effects Cognitive development |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2011.01203.x |
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References found in this work BETA
Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World.Wesley C. Salmon - 1984 - Princeton University Press.
Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement.Nancy Cartwright - 1989 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
View all 57 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Causal Pluralism in Philosophy: Empirical Challenges and Alternative Proposals.Phuong Ngoc Dinh & David Danks - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (5):761-772.
Non‐Bayesian Noun Generalization in 3‐ to 5‐Year‐Old Children: Probing the Role of Prior Knowledge in the Suspicious Coincidence Effect. [REVIEW]Gavin W. Jenkins, Larissa K. Samuelson, Jodi R. Smith & John P. Spencer - 2015 - Cognitive Science 39 (2):268-306.
The Cost of Learning: Interference Effects in Memory Development.Kevin P. Darby & Vladimir M. Sloutsky - 2015 - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 144 (2):410-431.
Of Blickets, Butterflies, and Baby Dinosaurs: Children’s Diagnostic Reasoning Across Domains.Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Elysia Choi & David M. Sobel - 2020 - Frontiers in Psychology 11.
The Development of Causal Categorization.Brett K. Hayes & Bob Rehder - 2012 - Cognitive Science 36 (6):1102-1128.
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