Reading focus
Syllabus: How Do We Reason and Solve Problems?
Draw the common-cause and common-effect structures implied by the instructions. Track the direction of reasoning separately from the direction of causation.
Why you're reading it. Show how an assumed causal structure can organize learning and inference beyond a list of associations.
A question to consider. Would observing both an alarm and a warning light mean the same thing if they were effects of one fault as if they were independent causes of it? Specify what the experiment would need to hold constant.
Why this reading
The same sequence of observations can be understood as causes predicting an effect or as effects indicating a cause. These experiments ask whether that interpretation changes cue competition, challenging accounts that ignore what the cues mean to the learner.
Before you read
Predictive reasoning moves from a proposed cause to its effects; diagnostic reasoning moves from effects to a possible cause. Neither direction of reasoning changes the assumed direction of causation. A causal model represents that structure; an observed correlation alone does not establish it.
Read for
- Identify how instructions establish the causal roles of cues, while distinguishing those roles from their order of presentation.
- Compare the blocking and later cue-rating patterns across predictive and diagnostic conditions.
- Ask which assumptions of the associative models under comparison generate symmetrical predictions and how a causal-model account differs.
Consider afterwards
- Two indicator lights could be competing causes of a machine failure or separate consequences of one failure. How might learning about the first light change judgments about the second in each case?
Editorial context
The three experiments support the importance of causal interpretation in the tasks examined. They do not establish that all associative models ignore meaning or that people invariably infer the correct causal structure. A result that challenges a specified model is narrower than a verdict on every possible associative explanation.