The advantage of timely intervention

Can people learn causal structure more effectively through intervention rather than observation? Four studies used a trial-based learning paradigm in which participants obtained probabilistic data about a causal chain through either observation or intervention and then selected the causal model most likely to have generated the data. Experiment 1 demonstrated that interveners made more correct model choices than did observers, and Experiments 2 and 3 ruled out explanations for this advantage in terms of informational differences between the 2 conditions. Experiment 4 tested the hypothesis that the advantage was driven by a temporal signal; interveners may exploit the cue that their interventions are the most likely causes of any subsequent changes. Results supported this temporal cue hypothesis.     

On the scientific standing of psychoanalysis

This paper speaks for the claim that psychoanalysis qualifies as a scientific enterprise. It will derive from the conceptual and evidential structure of psychoanalysis a causal empirical hypothesis that admits of scientific intraclinical testing. Relevant topics from the philosophy of science (especially the nature of causal explanation and the work of Grünbaum) and the psychoanalytic theories of pathogenesis and therapeutic action are discussed in a preliminary way to create a framework for the demonstration. The dynamic unconscious is examined as the core causal concept of psychoanalysis. Taken together with an account of the structure of the mental apparatus, a coherent picture of mental causation (the propagation of an unconscious impulse) comes into view. This leads to the formulation of a set of clinical propositions that unite to generate a causal empirical hypothesis based solely on data from the analytic setting--namely, that the transferences and symptoms that appear in free association in the analytic situation possess an interrelational structure that is theoretically implied and can be statistically confirmed.     

Exclusion,still not tracted

Karen Bennett has recently articulated and defended a “compatibilist” solution to the causal exclusion problem. Bennett’s solution works by rejecting the exclusion principle on the grounds that even though physical realizers are distinct from the mental states or properties that they realize, they necessarily co-occur such that they fail to satisfy standard accounts of causal over-determination. This is the case, Bennett argues, because the causal background conditions for core realizers being sufficient causes of their effects are identical to the “surround” conditions with which the core realizers are metaphysically sufficient the states or properties that they realize. Here we demonstrate that the background conditions for the causal sufficiency of core realizers for their effects are not identical to the core realizer’s surrounds, nor do backgrounds necessitate such surround conditions. If compatibilist solutions to exclusion can be defended, a different argument will be needed.     

Causal diversity effects in information seeking

When trying to determine the root cause of an observed effect, people may seek out information with which to test a candidate hypothesis. In two studies, we investigated how knowledge of causal structure influences this information-seeking process. Specifically, we asked whether people would choose to test for pieces of evidence that were far apart or close together in the learned causal structure of a disease category. In parallel with findings showing people’s tendency to select diverse evidence in argument testing (López, 1995), our participants tested for evidence distantly located within the causal structure. Simultaneously, they rated the probability of occurrence of such diverse evidence as comparatively low. These findings suggest that rather than seeking out information most likely to confirm the hypothesis, people seek out evidence that they believe will most strongly support the hypothesis if present but that they also believe is relatively unlikely to be present (that is, might disconfirm the hypothesis).     

Non-bayesian inference: causal structure trumps correlation

The study tests the hypothesis that conditional probability judgments can be influenced by causal links between the target event and the evidence even when the statistical relations among variables are held constant. Three experiments varied the causal structure relating three variables and found that (a) the target event was perceived as more probable when it was linked to evidence by a causal chain than when both variables shared a common cause; (b) predictive chains in which evidence is a cause of the hypothesis gave rise to higher judgments than diagnostic chains in which evidence is an effect of the hypothesis; and (c) direct chains gave rise to higher judgments than indirect chains. A Bayesian learning model was applied to our data but failed to explain them. An explanation-based hypothesis stating that statistical information will affect judgments only to the extent that it changes beliefs about causal structure is consistent with the results.     

SELF OR NO-SELF? CONVERGING PERSPECTIVES FROM NEUROPSYCHOLOGY AND MYSTICISM

Abstract. The nature of self is examined in relation to psychological observations which reveal some form of dissociation of knowledge from consciousness. Such dissociations are apparent in cases of blindsight, and amnesic patients displaying implicit memory effects, among others. While amnesic patients, for example, are unable consciously to recall material previously presented, such material does influence subsequent physiological and psychological processes. Thus, it is not the memories themselves that have been lost, but the ability to make conscious connection to them. In attempting to account for such observations, theoreticians generally have posited some kind of "consciousness system" that may become dissociated from brain modules dealing with specific processing.
It is argued here that a view of self along the lines of the Buddhist concepts of no-self and the conditioned nature of "I" introduces a more parsimonious perspective on the neuropsychological data. A theory of the nature of self is presented that constitutes a synthesis between key ideas drawn from Buddhist and other mainly mystical traditions and the scientific observations in psychology. Central to this theory is the role that the left hemisphere's interpreter (Gazzaniga 1985; 1988a; 1988b) plays in constructing a unified "I." This "I" is, in effect, a hypothesis that the mind generates to introduce some coherence into otherwise fragmentary mental elements. Although it appears to be the causal focus of the individual's behavior and experience, it is in fact a retrospective construction and not a true causal structure of the mind. This theoretical view is discussed in relation to various meanings of the term consciousness and also in relation to the relevant neuropsychological cases.     

Essentialism and the Necessity of the Laws of Nature

In this paper I discuss and evaluate different arguments for the view that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. I conclude that essentialist arguments from the nature of natural kinds fail to establish that essences are ontologically more basic than laws, and fail to offer an a priori argument for the necessity of all causal laws. Similar considerations carry across to the argument from the dispositionalist view of properties, which may end up placing unreasonable constraints on property identity across possible worlds. None of my arguments preclude the possibility that the laws may turn out to be metaphysically necessary after all, but I argue that this can only be established by a posteriori scientific investigation. I therefore argue for what may seem to be a surprising conclusion: that a fundamental metaphysical question – the modal status of laws of nature – depends on empirical facts rather than purely on a priori reasoning.     

Studies of inference from lack of knowledge

Two experiments were performed to investigate the conditions affecting lack-of-knowledge inferences. The lack-of-knowledge inference is a metainference, an inference based on knowledge about one’s own knowledge, in which the absence of information concerning a possible assertion is taken as evidence that the assertion is false. In Experiment 1, it was shown that lack of knowledge about an assertion decreases subjects’ ratings of the likelihood that the assertion is true. The more important the assertion and the more expert the person who lacks knowledge, the more certain is the lack-of-knowledge inference, as measured by a decrease in the rated likelihood of the assertion. In Experiment 2, a hypothesis about the nature of self-judgments of expertise was tested. This intrinsic observation hypothesis states that expertise relevant to an assertion is determined by the number of similar assertions from the same domain that the person can retrieve. The hypothesis was ruled out by the results of Experiment 2. Other possibilities for the manner in which self-judgments of this kind are made are discussed.     

An Error Concerning Noses

We identify a strategy for getting beliefs from fiction via three assumptions: (1) a certain causal generality holds in the fiction and does so because (2) causal generalities in fiction are (with noted exceptions) carried over from what the author takes to be fact; (3) the author is reliable on this topic, so what the author takes to be fact is fact. We do not question (2). While (3) will, in particular cases, be doubtful, the strategy is vulnerable more generally to the worry that what looks like a causal generality may be instead an authorial intervention of a kind from which no causal connection can be inferred; in such cases (1) turns out to be false though it may seem at first sight to be true. In consequence we have extra reason for being careful in forming beliefs based on fictions.     

Rethinking the Control of Nuisance Variables in Theory Testing

In testing hypotheses, researchers frequently have used multiple regression analysis to control for nuisance variables (i.e., potential confounding variables that are correlated with hypothesized causal variables). In this paper, we highlight limitations of this control strategy, and we discuss fundamental issues that should be considered in deciding whether to use it. Ultimately, we suggest the use of multiple regression analysis sometimes may not improve causal understanding and may actually limit the generalizability of results. Instead of the common practice of controlling for nuisance variables, we suggest that looking at shared variance frequently is a more appropriate test of a theoretical hypothesis.     

Category transfer in sequential causal learning: the unbroken mechanism hypothesis

The goal of the present set of studies is to explore the boundary conditions of category transfer in causal learning. Previous research has shown that people are capable of inducing categories based on causal learning input, and they often transfer these categories to new causal learning tasks. However, occasionally learners abandon the learned categories and induce new ones. Whereas previously it has been argued that transfer is only observed with essentialist categories in which the hidden properties are causally relevant for the target effect in the transfer relation, we here propose an alternative explanation, the unbroken mechanism hypothesis. This hypothesis claims that categories are transferred from a previously learned causal relation to a new causal relation when learners assume a causal mechanism linking the two relations that is continuous and unbroken. The findings of two causal learning experiments support the unbroken mechanism hypothesis.     

Impressions of force in visual perception of collision events: A test of the causal asymmetry hypothesis

When two objects interact they exert equal and opposite forces on each other. According to the causal asymmetry hypothesis, however, when one object has been identified as causal and the other as that in which the effect occurs, the causal object is perceived as exerting greater force on the effect object than the latter is perceived as exerting on the former. An example of this is a stimulus in which one object moves toward another stationary one, and when contact occurs the former stops and the latter moves away. In this situation the initially moving object is identified as causal, so the causal asymmetry hypothesis predicts that more force will be judged to be exerted by the moving object on the stationary one than by the stationary one on the moving one. Participants’ judgments consistently supported this hypothesis for a variety of stimuli in which kinematic parameters were varied, even when the initially moving object reversed direction after contact.     

The meaningful-based cognitive architecture model of schizophrenia

In subsymbolic operation of the Meaningful-Based Cognitive Architecture (MBCA) the input sensory vector is propagated through a hierarchy of Hopfield-like Network (HLN) functional groups, is recognized and may associatively trigger in the instinctual core goals module as well as in groups of HLNs arranged as pre-causal and pattern memory, vectors propagated to the output motor group of HLNs which produce an output signal. In full causal symbolic operation, the processed sensory input vector is also propagated to the logic/working memory groups of HLNs, where it can be compared to other vectors in the logic/working memory, and produce various outputs in response. The processed sensory input vector can trigger in the instinctual core goals module intuitive logic, intuitive physics, intuitive psychology and intuitive planning procedural vectors, as well as trigger in the causal group of HLNs learned logic, physics, psychology and planning procedural vectors which are also sent to the logic/working memory groups of HLNs. These circuits can allow the MBCA to act causally on information it has never seen before. An example is given of a Python simulation where the MBCA which is controlling a legged robot causally determines that a shallow whitewater river will cause water damage to itself, while if the MBCA is acting associatively only and never having seen whitewater before and normally crossing shallow rivers, will cross the whitewater river and become damaged. While the MBCA does not attempt to replicate biological systems at the neuronal spiking level, its HLNs and the organization of its HLNs are indeed inspired by biological mammalian minicolumns and mammalian brains. The MBCA model leads to the hypothesis that in the course of hominin evolution, HLNs became co-opted into groups of HLNs providing more extensive working memories with causal abilities, unlike non-hominins. While such co-option of the minicolumns can allow advantageous causal symbolic processing integrated with subsymbolic processing, the order of magnitude of increased complexity required for such organization and operation, created a vulnerability in the human brain to psychosis, which does not occur with significant prevalence in non-humans.     

The property transmission hypothesis: a possible explanation for visual impressions of pulling and other kinds of phenomenal causality

Under certain circumstances, stimuli involving two moving objects that do not come into contact reliably give rise to the illusory perceptual impression that one of the objects is pulling the other, as if there is an unseen connection between them. It is proposed that the conditions determining the occurrence of this impression can be explained as cases of application of the property-transmission hypothesis. This is a general hypothesis that causal objects operate in part by transmitting some of their own properties to effect objects under conditions where the causal object is active, where there are cues to the occurrence of generative transmission between the causal object and an effect object, and where there is a time-ordered relation of resemblance between properties of the causal object and those of the effect object. This hypothesis predicts that the pulling impression should occur only when the effect object adopts kinematic properties (speed and direction) that resemble those of the causal object. An experiment is reported that supports this prediction.     

Structural awareness mitigates the effect of delay in human causal learning

Many studies have demonstrated that reinforcement delays exert a detrimental influence on human judgments of causality. In a free-operant procedure, the trial structure is usually only implicit, and delays are typically manipulated via trial duration, with longer trials tending to produce both longer experienced delays and also lower objective contingencies. If, however, a learner can become aware of this trial structure, this may mitigate the effects of delay on causal judgments. Here we tested this “structural-awareness” hypothesis by manipulating whether response–outcome contingencies were clearly identifiable as such, providing structural information in real time using an auditory tone to delineate consecutive trials. A first experiment demonstrated that providing cues to indicate trial structure, but without an explicit indication of their meaning, significantly increased the accuracy of causal judgments in the presence of delays. This effect was not mediated by changes in response frequency or timing, and a second experiment demonstrated that it cannot be attributed to the alternative explanation of enhanced outcome salience. In a third experiment, making trial structure explicit and unambiguous, by telling participants that the tones indicated trial structure, completely abolished the effect of delays. We concluded that, with sufficient information, a continuous stream of causes and effects can be perceived as a series of discrete trials, the contingency nature of the input may be exploited, and the effects of delay may be eliminated. These results have important implications for human contingency learning and in the characterization of temporal influences on causal inference.     

THE ASSUMPTIONS OF CAUSAL ANALYSES FOR INCOMPLETE CAUSAL SETS OF TWO MULTILEVEL VARIABLES

aThree causal analyses of correlations: the two-stage partial correlation analysis of Pelz and Andrews (1964); the cross-lagged panel correlation analysis of Campbell and Stanley (1963), Campbell (1963), and Rozelle and Campbell (1969); and a new three-stage analysis described in this paper are evaluated in terms of causal models representing any two variables which constitute an incomplete causal set. It is found t h a t the first two analyses make assumptions which are not generally true and which are not presently subject to practical tests. The third i s found to be useful as a way of finding out whether the correlation between two variables i s due entirely to third variable causation.     

Generalized Trust Through Civic Engagement? Evidence from Five National Panel Studies

According to a popular version of social capital theory, civic engagement should produce generalized trust among citizens. We put this theory to the test by examining the causal connection between civic engagement and generalized trust using multiple methods and multiple (prospective) panel datasets. We found participants to be more trusting. This was mostly likely caused by selection effects: the causal effects of civic engagement on trust were very small or nonsignificant. In the cases where small causal effects were found, they turned out not to last. We found no differences across types of organizations and only minor variations across countries.     

The essentialist aspect of naive theories

Recent work on children's inferences concerning biological and chemical categories has suggested that children (and perhaps adults) are essentialists - a view known as psychological essentialism. I distinguish three varieties of psychological essentialism and investigate the ways in which essentialism explains the inferences for which it is supposed to account. Essentialism succeeds in explaining the inferences, I argue, because it attributes to the child belief in causal laws connecting category membership and the possession of certain characteristic appearances and behavior. This suggests that the data will be equally well explained by a non-essentialist hypothesis that attributes belief in the appropriate causal laws to the child, but makes no claim as to whether or not the child represents essences. I provide several reasons to think that this non-essentialist hypothesis is in fact superior to any version of the essentialist hypothesis.     

因果推理中的亚决定性

“亚决定性”是知识论和科学哲学中一个重要的概念。对这个概念的一种阐释是把它对应于可靠探索的不可能性。就是说,在一个（经验）问题中,给定一些公设和一些供选择的理论或假说,如果逻辑上不可能找到一种理论选择的方法能满足一定的可靠或成功标准,那么相对于这个标准就存在亚决定性。从这个观点看,亚决定性总是相对于一个问题设定,尤其是公设和成功标准而言的。本文从这个角度对近来的统计因果推理研究作一番梳理。首先,基于数理统计中的一致性概念,我会讨论和分析一系列可应用于因果推理的成功标准。对每一个标准,我会用一个相对简单的条件来刻画它对应的亚决定性。然后我对文献里一部分重要的结果作一个综述,以澄清什么样的公设可以消除什么样的亚决定性。     

An extension of freud and jung’s theory of the relation of dream states to schizophrenia

The central model for both Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung for the generation of schizophrenia’s hallucinations and delusional system is described as the intrusion of nighttime dream states into the waking consciousness. In this theoretical exegesis, a rent or tear is made in the ego instated by strongly repressed aggressive impulses which then create a dream-world for the patient as they subsequently overwhelm ego defenses. A parallel between this mode of knowing and, for example, the regioning of Martin Heidegger in his Discourse on Thinking is brought forward. Since these modes of thought are analogical and metaphorical, analysis based on this similarity may provide for greater insight into the thought and perceptual disorders of schizophrenia. An understanding of this kind of thought process may then provide a bridge towards more effective therapeutic interventions. A distinction is made between thought processes, per se, and those causal factors of a biological nature.