@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} }