Abstract
Stimulus competition was studied in college students' correlational judgments in a medical decision-making setting. In accord with prior findings, subjects making cause-to-effect (predictive) judgments discounted a stimulus event that was moderately correlated with a target event when rival stimuli were more highly correlated with the effect. However, subjects making effect-to-cause (diagnostic) judgments were not at all disposed to discount a stimulus event which was moderately correlated with a target event when rival stimuli were more highly correlated with the cause. The theoretical implications of these results are considered in connection with associative and mentalistic models of causal attribution.
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Van Hamme, L.J., Kao, SF. & Wasserman, E.A. Judging interevent relations: From cause to effect and from effect to cause. Mem Cogn 21, 802–808 (1993). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202747
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202747