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| Research article summary (published 30 Mar 2003): |
Causal judgment as evaluation of evidence: the use of confirmation and disconfirmatory information.
Full Abstract
There are four kinds of contingency information:
occurrences and nonoccurrences of an effect in the presence and absence ofa cause. In two experiments participants made judgements about sets of stimulus materials in which one of these four kinds had zero frequency. The experiments tested two kinds of predictions derived from the evidential evaluation model of causal judgement, which postulates that causal judgement depends on the proportion of instances evaluated as confirmatory for the cause being judged. The model predicts significant effects of manipulating the frequency of one kind of contingency information in the absence of changes in the objective contingency. The model also predicts that extra weight will be given to one kind of confirmatory information when the other kind has zero frequency, and to one kind of disconfirmatory information when the other kind has zero frequency. Results supported both sets of predictions, and also disconfirmed predictions of the power probabilistic contrast theory of causal judgement. This research therefore favours an account of causal judgement in which contingency information is transformed into evidence, and judgement is based on the n et confirmatory or disconfirmatoryvalue of the evidence.
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Author information
Author/s: White, Peter A (PA);
Affiliation: School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Wales, UK. whitepa(-atsign-)cardiff.ac.uk
Journal and publication information
Publication Type: Evaluation Studies; Journal Article
Journal: The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology (Q J Exp Psychol A), published in England. (Language: eng)
Reference: 2003-Apr; vol 56 (issue 3) : pp 491-513
Dates: Created 2003/06/18; Completed 2003/07/28; Revised 2004/11/17;
PMID: 12814099, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)
Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.
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