ERIC Number: EJ689202
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005-Mar
Pages: 11
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0278-7393
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Available Date: N/A
Seeing Versus Doing: Two Modes of Accessing Causal Knowledge
Waldmann, Michael R.; Hagmayer, York
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, v31 n2 p216-227 Mar 2005
The ability to derive predictions for the outcomes of potential actions from observational data is one of the hallmarks of true causal reasoning. We present four learning experiments with deterministic and probabilistic data showing that people indeed make different predictions from causal models, whose parameters were learned in a purely observational learning phase, depending on whether learners believe that an event within the model has been merely observed ("seeing") or was actively manipulated ("doing"). The predictions reflect sensitivity both to the structure of the causal models and to the size of their parameters. This competency is remarkable because the predictions for potential interventions were very different from the patterns that had actually been observed. Whereas associative and probabilistic theories fail, recent developments of causal Bayes net theories provide tools for modeling this competency.
Descriptors: Competence, Observational Learning, Causal Models, Probability, Predictor Variables, Psychological Studies
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Publication Type: Journal Articles
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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Authoring Institution: N/A
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