Causal illusions in children when the outcome is frequent.

ABSTRACT: Causal illusions occur when people perceive a causal relation between two events that are actually unrelated. One factor that has been shown to promote these mistaken beliefs is the outcome probability. Thus, people tend to overestimate the strength of a causal relation when the potential consequence (i.e. the outcome) occurs with a high probability (outcome-density bias). Given that children and adults differ in several important features involved in causal judgment, including prior knowledge and basic cognitive skills, developmental studies can be considered an outstanding approach to detect and further explore the psychological processes and mechanisms underlying this bias. However, the outcome density bias has been mainly explored in adulthood, and no previous evidence for this bias ha

SUBMITTER: Moreno-Fernandez MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5595306 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature