Three experiments examined children's and adults' abilities to use statistical and temporal information to distinguish between common cause and causal chain structures. In Experiment 1, participants were provided with conditional probability information and/or temporal information and asked to infer the causal structure of a 3-variable mechanical…

In a series of 4 experiments, we tested children's understanding that the causes of their actions must necessarily be attributed to information known prior to (i.e., "pre-action" information), rather than after (i.e., "post-action" information), the completion of their actions. For example, children were shown a dog, asked…

The experience of causation is a pervasive product of the human mind. Moreover, the experience of causing an event alters subjective time: actions are perceived as temporally shifted towards their effects [Haggard, P., Clark, S., & Kalogeras, J. (2002). Voluntary action and conscious awareness. "Nature Neuroscience," 5(4), 382-385]. This temporal…

The current study assessed deictic relational responding in people with schizophrenia. A perspective-taking task and a mental states attribution task were employed with a sample of 15 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 15 age-matched controls. Results revealed poorer performance of participants with schizophrenia in responding in accordance…