Can Causal Chains Extend Back Infinitely?

Can oxygen anosmia extend lifespan?

Induction of causal chains

The current study examined one way in which people learn complex causal relations from covariation. When participants were presented with covariation information between X and Y and covariation information between Y and Z only, they were willing to infer a causal relationship between X and Z, although it is not warranted by the evidence. Furthermore, the perceived strength of the terminal relat...

An Algebra of Causal Chains

In this work we propose a multi-valued extension of logic programs under the stable models semantics where each true atom in a model is associated with a set of justifications, in a similar spirit than a set of proof trees. The main contribution of this paper is that we capture justifications into an algebra of truth values with three internal operations: an addition ‘+’ representing alternativ...

Optimal diagnosis for causal chains

An optimal algorithm to do probe selection in causal chains is presented. Probes may have different costs of measurement. The algorithm runs in polynomial time. This research was supported in part by the Ballistic Missile Defense Advanced Technology Center under contract #DASG60-86-C-0015, the Office of Naval Research, under Agreement #N00014-85-K-0008 and the Defense Advanced Research Projects...

Running head: TRANSITIVE REASONING IN CAUSAL CHAINS Transitive Reasoning Distorts Induction in Causal Chains

A probabilistic causal chain ABC may intuitively appear to be transitive: If A probabilistically causes B, and B probabilistically causes C, A probabilistically causes C. However, probabilistic causal relations are only transitive if the so-called Markov condition holds. In two experiments, we examined how people make probabilistic judgments about indirect relationships AC in causal chains A...