Causal reasoning Flashcards
How can exposure succeed or fail in statistical learning extracting a prototype?
Present a broad range of category exemplars but present typical ones more often. In contrast, 10m presented with two, end exemplars do not find the prototype familiar at test. The prototype has high Rs between features (Younger, 1985)
Do children prioritise causality when categorising items? Gelman (2004)
Yes, children search for hidden, often invisible causal mechanisms to explain object actions, going beyond perceptual features e.g. wings enable flight
At what age did Leslie & Keeble (1987) show that infants dishabituate to a change in the agent but not to a reversal of event orders, meaning they must perceive causality? What was the procedure used?
6m. Familiarised to a red square immediately or after a delay launching a green square. Test: shown the green square launching the red square directly or indirectly. Dishabituated to direct but not indirect test event
Which drives dishabituation in 12m: perceptual or causal novelty? What was the method of Gergely (1995)?
Causal novelty. Familiarisation: ball A jumps over a barrier when ball B begins to expand/ contract. Test: old jumping action without the barrier = perceptually familiar but causally illegitimate/ novel vs. new rolling action = perceptually novel but causally familiar. 12m dishabituated to causal novelty only
Do 7m have a separate causal framework for judging artifacts (nonbiological) vs. humans (biological)? What are they?
Yes, artifacts exhibit only physical causality (mechanical, usually observable C-E r/ships) vs. people who also exhibit psychological causality (rarely observable, desires and beliefs have influences)
“7m apply forceful contact rules to objects but not to people” - how did Spelke (1995) demonstrate this?
Familiarisation: object/ person A moves behind a screen & object/ person B appears at the other end. Test: screen removed: either B does not move until A has contacted B or B moves without A reaching it. 7m dishabituated only to the no-contact test with objects but not with people
Motion gives rich info about: (3 things)
Causality, animacy (living or not) and agency
If we remove language demands, is 3 and 4y causal reasoning ability majorly altered by event familiarity? What method removes language demands (Gelman, 1980)? Which condition is easiest?
No, which makes sense given its symbolic nature. Presenting 3 part sequences with the 1st, 2nd or 3rd image removed and asking 3-4y to select the appropriate image. With the agent missing, then the last image (noncononical), then the first (canonical)
What are the 4 causal principles or the Humean Indices?
1) Priority principle (A precedes B in time)
2) Covariation principle (covary in a consistent way)
3) Temporal contiguity (occur together in time & space)
4) Similarity principle (share similarity e.g. mechanical causes require mechanical effects)
Do 3, 4 and 5y apply the priority principle? How did Bullock and Gelman (1979) test this?
Yes. 3, 4 and 5y were asked whether marble A or B caused Jack to jump out of a box. A was rolled before Jack jumped, whereas B was rolled afterwards. Most chose A, regardless of whether the tunnel was spatially connected to the Jack in the box or not
Do 3-4y understand the covariation principle? How did Schultz and Mendelson (1975) test this?
Shown a box with two levers and a light. Asked which lever caused the light to come on after being shown different combinations of lever pressing causing the switching on of the light or not. Lever 1 was 100% correlated with the light on. 3-4y accurately chose this lever
Do 4-7y apply the temporal contiguity principle? What procedure did Mendelson & Schultz (1975) use to test this?
Yes. Marble dropped in green box 1st. 5s later marble dropped in orange box. Bell rang immediately. Also shown orange + no ring. 4-7y attributed agency to orange when no tube between box & bell shown (= contiguity preferred to covariation) vs. green when tube shown (covariation preferred to contiguity)
What is the age difference in terms of applying the similarity principle in the face of conflicting covariation info? What procedure did Schultz and Ravinsky (1977) use to test this?
Shown that the blue bottle makes water turn pink 5 secs later 100% of the time vs. the pink bottle makes water turn pink only sometimes. Asked which made the water go pink. 12y prefer covariation to similarity vs. younger children prefer similarity to covariation
Much research has questioned which causal principle is the most important. What is wrong with this approach? Give an e.g.
It undermines our use of background knowledge to assign weight to principles, given that most causal events are familiar. E.g. red cars tend to go faster than blue cars but covariation in this context is attributed less value because we know that paint colour is unlikely to affect speed (unless we know blue attracts cautious drivers)
What are causal bayes nets? Give an e.g. of their use
Statistical models which predict the effects of manipulating the causal features of an event on our causal reasoning e.g. what happens if the covariation of A and B is spurious (inconsistent)? The algorithms screen off spurious causes
