From symptoms to causes: diversity effects in diagnostic reasoning.

Full Abstract

A single causal agent can often give rise to a cascade of consequences that can be envisioned as a branching pathway in which symptoms are the terminal nodes. In three studies, we investigated whether reasoning about root causes on the basis of such symptoms would conform to a diversity effect analogous to that found in inductive reasoning about properties of hierarchically organized categories. A strong diversity effect was found both for reasoning about medical diseases that drew on existing background knowledge and for reasoning that did not. Specifically, the presence of a root cause was more likely to be induced when the symptoms present were further apart in the branching structure.

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Author information

Author/s: Kim, Nancy S (NS); Keil, Frank C (FC);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8205, USA. nskim@aya.yale.edu

Grants: R01-HD23922 (Agency:United States NICHD)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Memory & cognition (Mem Cognit), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Jan; vol 31 (issue 1) : pp 155-65

Dates: Created 2003/04/17; Completed 2003/05/14; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 12699151, 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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