Hall, Simon (2022) Discounting and augmenting in causal conditional reasoning and the influence of how judgements are elicited. PhD thesis, Birkbeck, University of London.
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Abstract
The research described here examines reasoning about causal relationships expressed as pairs of conditional sentences of two types. The pairs either shared a cause, and gave two effects of that cause, or shared an effect, and gave two causes of that effect. Two phenomena that should when the causal meaning of such conditionals is taken account of are discounting and explaining away. If an effect has two causes, and the effect is known to have occurred, and then one of the causes is found to have also occurred, the probability of the other cause will fall. It is no longer needed to explain the effect. For conditionals sharing a cause, learning that one effect is true will make the other more probable, in the case that the state of the effect is not known. One effect makes the cause more probable, which in turn makes the other effect more probable. If the cause it itself known to be true, learning one effect does not make the other more probable. The cause is all that is needed to explain the other effect. Previous research has suggested that discounting and augmenting, which are effects of causal conditional relations, occur differently depending on whether reasoners are asked to give probabilities for one cause or one effect of a pari before and after learning that the other one has occurred, or if they are simply asked to describe the direction of the change in probability that has taken place. This response mode discrepancy is here replicated and confirmed to be a robust effect in a series of experiments conducted over the internet. Various data collected failed to provide a satisfactory explanation for this anomaly. A speculative explanation is described, but further research is needed.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Thesis |
|---|---|
| Copyright Holders: | The copyright of this thesis rests with the author, who asserts his/her right to be known as such according to the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. No dealing with the thesis contrary to the copyright or moral rights of the author is permitted. |
| Depositing User: | Acquisitions And Metadata |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Dec 2022 16:56 |
| Last Modified: | 28 Jun 2024 15:41 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/50219 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.18743/PUB.00050219 |
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