Distinguishing genuine from spurious causes: A coherence hypothesis
Distinguishing genuine from spurious causes: A coherence hypothesis
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DOI：
10.1006/cogp.1999.0724
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发表时间：
2000-03-01
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Cheng, PW
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lien, YW;Cheng, PW
人们提出了两种对立的观点来解释人们如何区分真正的原因和虚假的原因：功率观点和协变观点。本文注意到两个现象，挑战这两种观点。首先，即使1）不存在关于规律性的固有的特定因果知识（因此幂观不适用），2）在控制替代原因的情况下不能计算协变（因此协变观不适用），人们仍然能够系统地判断规律性是否是因果关系。第二，当一个替代原因解释了我的结果时，一个虚假的原因被判断为虚假的信心比其他情况下更大（在这两种情况下，没有因果机制支撑虚假的原因）。为了弥补传统观点的差距，本文提出了一种新的观点整合。根据一致性假说，虽然一个真正的原因和一个虚假的原因都可能与一个结果协变，但在某种抽象层次上并不意味着因果关系，这些候选原因所属的类别在更抽象的层次上与结果协变的方式不同：一个协变意味着因果关系，另一个则不是。考虑到这种高级知识，一个试图用尽可能少的因果规则解释尽可能多的原因的推理者的因果判断将表现出挑战传统观点的性质。两个实验验证并支持了连贯性假设。这两个实验都涉及候选原因，这些原因与某种程度上不暗示因果关系的结果协变，操纵是否在更抽象的层面上获得了暗示因果关系的协变。实验在是否有其他原因解释这种效应上存在分歧。(C)北京大学出版社.
Two opposing views have been proposed to explain how people distinguish genuine causes from spurious ones: the power view and the covariational view. This paper notes two phenomena that challenge both views. First, even when 1) there is no innate specific causal knowledge about a regularity (so that the power view does not apply) and 2) covariation cannot be computed while controlling for alternative causes (so that the covariation view should not apply), people are still able to systematically judge whether a regularity is causal. Second, when an alternative cause explains me effect, a spurious cause is judged to be spurious with greater confidence than otherwise (in both cases, no causal mechanism underlies the spurious cause). To fill the gap left by the traditional views, this paper proposes a new integration of these views. According to the coherence hypothesis, although a genuine cause and a spurious one may both covary with an effect in a way that does not imply causality at some level of abstraction, the categories to which these candidate causes belong covary with the effect differently at a more abstract level: one covariation implies causality; the other does not. Given this superordinate knowledge, the causal judgments of a reasoner who seeks to explain as much as possible with as few causal rules as possible will exhibit the properties that challenge the traditional views. Two experiments tested and supported the coherence hypothesis. Both experiments involved candidate causes that covary with an effect without implying causality at some level, manipulating whether covariation that implies causality has been acquired at a more abstract level. The experiments differed on whether an alternative cause explains the effect. (C) 2000 Academic Press.