@proceedings {2536, title = {Marbles in inaction: Counterfactual simulation and causation by omission}, year = {2017}, month = {07/2017}, abstract = {

Consider\  the\  following\  causal\  explanation:\ \  The\  ball\  went through the goal because the defender didn{\textquoteright}t block it.\  There are at least two problems with citing omissions as causal ex- planations.\ \  First,\  how\  do\  we\  choose\  the\  relevant\  candidate omission (e.g. why the defender and not the goalkeeper). Sec- ond, how do we determine what would have happened in the relevant\  counterfactual\  situation\  (i.e.\ \  maybe\  the\  shot\  would still have gone through the goal even if it had been blocked). In this paper, we extend the counterfactual simulation model (CSM) of causal judgment (Gerstenberg, Goodman, Lagnado, \& Tenenbaum, 2014) to handle the second problem. In two ex- periments, we show how people{\textquoteright}s causal model of the situation affects their causal judgments via influencing what counterfac- tuals\  they\  consider.\ \  Omissions\  are\  considered\  causes\  to\  the extent that the outcome in the relevant counterfactual situation would have been different from what it actually was.

}, author = {Simon Stephan and Pascale Willemsen and Tobias Gerstenberg} }