Contrasts in reasoning about omissions

Omissions figure prominently in causal reasoning from diagnosis to ascriptions of negligence. One philosophical proposal posits that omissions are accompanied by a contrasting alternative that describes a case of orthodox (nonomissive) causation (Schaffer, 2005; Bernstein, 2014). A psychological hypothesis can be drawn from this contrast view of omissions: by default, humans should interpret omissive causations as representing at least two possibilities, i.e., a possibility representing the omission and a possibility representing a contrast. The theory of mental models supposes that reasoners construct only one possibility (the omission) by default, and that they consider separate alternative possibilities in sequential order. Two experiments test the contrast hypothesis against the model theory, and find evidence in favor of the model-theoretic account.

省略在从诊断到过失归因的因果推理中占据显著位置。一种哲学上的提议认为，省略伴随着一种相反的替代选择，该选择描述了一种正统（非省略）的因果关系（Schaffer, 2005；Bernstein, 2014）。从这种省略的对比观点可以引出一种心理学假设：人类在默认情况下应当将省略的因果关系理解为至少包含两种可能性，即代表省略的可能性与代表对比的可能性。心智模型理论假定，推理者在默认情况下仅构建一种可能性（省略），并且他们会按照顺序考虑独立的替代可能性。两个实验检验了对比假设与模型理论，并发现支持模型理论证据。