Are Biases When Making Causal Interventions Related to Biases in Belief Updating?

Anna Coenen, Todd M. Gureckis

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

People often make decisions with the goal of gaining information which can help reduce their uncertainty. However, recent work has suggested that people sometimes do not select the most diagnostic information queries available to them. A critical aspect of information search decisions is evaluating how obtaining a piece of information will alter a learner's beliefs (e.g., a piece of information that is redundant with what is already known is useless). This suggests a close relationship between information seeking decisions on one hand, and belief updating on the other. This paper explores the deeper relationship between these two constructs in a causal intervention learning task. We find that patterns in belief updating biases are predictive of decision making patterns in tasks where people must make interventions learn about the structure of a causal system.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2015
EditorsDavid C. Noelle, Rick Dale, Anne Warlaumont, Jeff Yoshimi, Teenie Matlock, Carolyn D. Jennings, Paul P. Maglio
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages411-416
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9780991196722
StatePublished - 2015
Event37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Mind, Technology, and Society, CogSci 2015 - Pasadena, United States
Duration: Jul 23 2015Jul 25 2015

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2015

Conference

Conference37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Mind, Technology, and Society, CogSci 2015
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPasadena
Period7/23/157/25/15

Keywords

  • causal interventions
  • causal learning
  • hypothesis testing
  • information search

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

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