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Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task

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The causal structure of utility conditionals.

Jean-François Bonnefon¹, Steven A Sloman

¹Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Université de Toulouse, France. bonnefon@univ-tlse2.fr

Cognitive Science

|November 21, 2012

Summary

Reasoning with valued outcomes (utility conditionals) depends on more than just utility and probability. Causal structure significantly influences how people make these judgments, especially when the outcome

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Decision Science
Moral Reasoning

Background:

Reasoning research increasingly integrates agent values and preferences.
Utility conditionals ('if p then q' where p or q have value) are a key focus.
Existing models assume inferences depend on comparing utilities.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the role of causal structure in utility-informed conditional reasoning.
To determine if causal structure moderates inferences from utility conditionals.
To identify conditions under which causal structure impacts reasoning.

Main Methods:

Four experiments were conducted to test the influence of causal structure.
Participants reasoned from utility conditionals with varying underlying causal structures (causal vs. diagnostic).

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The clarity of the utility of the consequent (q) was manipulated.

Main Results:

Causal structure significantly moderated utility-informed conditional reasoning.
Inferences were stronger for conditionals with a causal structure compared to a diagnostic structure.
This effect was dependent on the clarity of the utility of the consequent (q).

Conclusions:

An adequate account of utility-informed conditional reasoning must include utility, probability, and causal structure.
Causal structure is a crucial, previously underappreciated factor in how people reason about valued outcomes.
The influence of causal structure is conditional on the clarity of outcome utility.