A counterfactual simulation model of causal judgments for physical events.

Psychological Review
Tobias GerstenbergJoshua B Tenenbaum

Abstract

How do people make causal judgments about physical events? We introduce the counterfactual simulation model (CSM) which predicts causal judgments in physical settings by comparing what actually happened with what would have happened in relevant counterfactual situations. The CSM postulates different aspects of causation that capture the extent to which a cause made a difference to whether and how the outcome occurred, and whether the cause was sufficient and robust. We test the CSM in several experiments in which participants make causal judgments about dynamic collision events. A preliminary study establishes a very close quantitative mapping between causal and counterfactual judgments. Experiment 1 demonstrates that counterfactuals are necessary for explaining causal judgments. Participants' judgments differed dramatically between pairs of situations in which what actually happened was identical, but where what would have happened differed. Experiment 2 features multiple candidate causes and shows that participants' judgments are sensitive to different aspects of causation. The CSM provides a better fit to participants' judgments than a heuristic model which uses features based on what actually happened. We discuss how the CS...Continue Reading

Citations

Jun 20, 2021·Cognition·Tadeg Quillien, Tamsin C German
Apr 6, 2021·Cognition·Paul HenneAugustana Houcek
Jul 25, 2021·Cognition·Tobias Gerstenberg, Simon Stephan

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