Interpretations of Conditional and Causal Statements

Two experiments compared people’s interpretations of indicative conditionals (e.g., if the shape is blue, then it’s a square), subjunctive conditionals (e.g., if the shape were blue, then it would be a square), causation statements (e.g., the shape being blue causes it to be a square) and prevention statements (e.g., the shape being blue prevents it from being a square). In the first experiment, participants rated the extent to which the statements were true of arrays of coloured shapes. In the second experiment, participants constructed their own arrays of coloured shapes to show the statements to be true or false. The results suggest that people tend to interpret all four statements in the same way and they often interpret them extensionally rather than probabilistically. The implications of the findings for theories of conditional and causal thinking are discussed.