Adapting to an Uncertain World: Cognitive Capacity and Causal Reasoning with Ambiguous Observations

Yiyun Shou,Michael Smithson

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0140608

Abstract

Ambiguous causal evidence in which the covariance of the cause and effect is partially known is pervasive in real life situations. Little is known about how people reason about causal associations with ambiguous information and the underlying cognitive mechanisms. This paper presents three experiments exploring the cognitive mechanisms of causal reasoning with ambiguous observations. Results revealed that the influence of ambiguous observations manifested by missing information on causal reasoning depended on the availability of cognitive resources, suggesting that processing ambiguous information may involve deliberative cognitive processes. Experiment 1 demonstrated that subjects did not ignore the ambiguous observations in causal reasoning. They also had a general tendency to treat the ambiguous observations as negative evidence against the causal association. Experiment 2 and Experiment 3 included a causal learning task requiring a high cognitive demand in which paired stimuli were presented to subjects sequentially. Both experiments revealed that processing ambiguous or missing observations can depend on the availability of cognitive resources. Experiment 2 suggested that the contribution of working memory capacity to the comprehensiveness of evidence retention was reduced when there were ambiguous or missing observations. Experiment 3 demonstrated that an increase in cognitive demand due to a change in the task format reduced subjects’ tendency to treat ambiguous-missing observations as negative cues.

Highlights

Inferences about causal relations require the observation and integration of causal cues, and rely on the quality of the observed evidence
The first hypothesis, whereby the effects of the omitted information were significantly different from the effects of ambiguous-unknown (AU) observations on causal reasoning, was rejected, as results indicated that subjects did not merely omit the AU observations in causal reasoning
Rather than applying one single imputation method, subjects reported applying strategies reactively depending on the information available in the reasoning context

Summary

Introduction

Inferences about causal relations require the observation and integration of causal cues, and rely on the quality of the observed evidence. People are sensitive to incomplete and ambiguous information in judgment and decision making [1,2]. People may apply their knowledge to process ambiguous information in causal reasoning. People are able to infer causes that are not observed, and distinguish these hidden causes from coincidences [3,4]. Some recent studies indicate that young children

Objectives

Results

Conclusion