Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning

Causal reasoning is one of our most central cognitive competencies, enabling us to adapt to our world. Causal knowledge allows us to predict future events, or diagnose the causes of observed facts. We plan actions and solve problems using knowledge about cause-effect relations. Although causal reasoning is a component of most of our cognitive functions, it has been neglected in cognitive psychology for many decades. The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning offers a state-of-the-art review of the growing field, and its contribution to the world of cognitive science. The Handbook begins with an introduction of competing theories of causal learning and reasoning. In the next section, it presents research about basic cognitive functions involved in causal cognition, such as perception, categorization, argumentation, decision-making, and induction. The following section examines research on domains that embody causal relations, including intuitive physics, legal and moral reasoning, psychopathology, language, social cognition, and the roles of space and time. The final section presents research from neighboring fields that study developmental, phylogenetic, and cultural differences in causal cognition. The chapters, each written by renowned researchers in their field, fill in the gaps of many cognitive psychology textbooks, emphasizing the crucial role of causal structures in our everyday lives. This Handbook is an essential read for students and researchers of the cognitive sciences, including cognitive, developmental, social, comparative, and cross-cultural psychology; philosophy; methodology; statistics; artificial intelligence; and machine learning.

Michael R. Waldmann, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at the University of Göttingen, Germany. He has received the early career research award from the German Society for Psychology, and is a Fellow of APS. Currently he is serving as an associate editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, and as chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute of Human Development, Berlin. The focus of his research is on higher-level cognitive processes across different species and cultures.

- Contents - 1. Causal Reasoning: An Introduction - Michael R. WaldmannPart I Theories of Causal Cognition - 2. Associative Accounts of Causal Cognition - Mike E. Le Pelley, Oren Griffiths, and Tom Beesley - 3. Rules of Causal Judgment: Mapping Statistical Information Onto Causal Beliefs - José C. Perales, Andrés Catena, Antonio Cándido, and Antonio Maldonado - 4. The Inferential Reasoning Theory of Causal Learning: Toward a Multi- Process Propositional Account - Yannick Boddez, Jan DeHouwer, and Tom Beckers - 5. Causal Invariance as an Essential Constraint for Creating a Causal Representation of the World: Generalizing the Invariance of Causal Power - Patricia W. Cheng and Hongjing Lu - 6. The Acquisition and Use of Causal Structure Knowledge - Benjamin Margolin Rottman - 7. Formalizing Prior Knowledge in Causal Induction - Thomas L. Griffiths - 8. Causal Mechanisms - Samuel G.B. Johnson and Woo-kyoung Ahn - 9. Force Dynamics and Causation - Phillip Wolff and Robert Thorstad - 10. Mental Models and Causation - P.N. Johnson Laird and Sangeet S. Khemlani - 11. Pseudocontingencies - Klaus Fiedlerand Florian Kutzner - 12. Singular Causation - David Danks - 13. Cognitive Neuroscience of Causal Reasoning - Joachim T. Operskalski and Aron K. Barbey - Part II: Basic Cognitive Functions - 14. Visual Impressions of Causality - Peter White - 15. Goal-Directed Actions - Bernhard Hommel - 16. Planning and Control - Magda Osman - 17. Reinforcement Learning and Causal Models - Samuel J. Gershman - 18. Causation and the Probability of Causal Conditionals - David E. Over - 19. Causal Models and Conditional Reasoning - Mike Oaksford and Nick Chater - 20. Concepts as Causal Models: Categorization - Bob Rehder - 21. Concepts as Causal Models: Inductions - Bob Rehder - 22. Causal Explanation - Tania Lombrozo and Nadya Vasilyeva - 23. Diagnostic Reasoning - Björn Meder and Ralf Mayrhofer - 24. Inferring Causal Relations by Analogy - Keith J. Holyoak and Hee Seung Lee - 25. Causal Argument - Ulrike Hahn, Roland Bluhm, and Frank Zenker - 26. Causality in Decision Making - York Hagmayer and Philip M. Fernbach - Part III: Domains of Causal Reasoning - 27. Intuitive Theories - Tobias Gerstenberg and Joshua B. Tenenbaum - 28. Space, Time, and Causality - Marc J. Buehner - 29. Causation in Legal and Moral Reasoning - David A. Lagnado and Tobias Gerstenberg - 30. The Role of Causal Knowledge in Reasoning About Mental Disorders - Woo-kyoung Ahn, Nancy S. Kim, and Matthew S. Lebowitz - 31. Causality and Causal Reasoning in Natural Language - Torgrim Solstad and Oliver Bott - 32. Social Attribution and Explanation - Denis Hilton - Part IV: Development, Phylogeny, and Culture - 33. The Development of Causal Reasoning - Paul Muentener and Elizabeth Bonawitz - 34. Causal Reasoning in Non-Human Animals - Christian Schloegl and Julia Fischer - 35. Causal Cognition and Culture - Andrea Bender, Sieghard Beller, and Douglas L. Medin - Index